A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Lannisters, and could command thrice as many swords as any of Highgarden’s other bannermen.”
    â€œMore, if he sweeps the cobblestones,” the captain said, “but swords are no good against the ironmen, unless the men who wield them know how to walk on water.”
    â€œThe Hightower must be doing
something.
”
    â€œTo be sure. Lord Leyton’s locked atop his tower with the Mad Maid, consulting books of spells. Might be he’ll raise an army from the deeps. Or not. Baelor’s building galleys, Gunthor has charge of the harbor, Garth is training new recruits, and Humfrey’s gone to Lys to hire sellsails. If he can winkle a proper fleet out of his whore of a sister, we can start paying back the ironmen with some of their own coin. Till then, the best we can do is guard the sound and wait for the bitch queen in King’s Landing to let Lord Paxter off his leash.”
    The bitterness of the captain’s final words shocked Sam as much as the things he said.
If King’s Landing loses Oldtown and the Arbor, the whole realm will fall to pieces,
he thought as he watched the
Huntress
and her sisters moving off.
    It made him wonder if even Horn Hill was truly safe. The Tarly lands lay inland amidst thickly wooded foothills, a hundred leagues northeast of Oldtown and a long way from any coast. They should be well beyond the reach of ironmen and longships, even with his lord father off fighting in the riverlands and the castle lightly held. The Young Wolf had no doubt thought the same was true of Winterfell until the night that Theon Turncloak scaled his walls. Sam could not bear the thought that he might have brought Gilly and her babe all this long way to keep them out of harm, only to abandon them in the midst of war.
    He wrestled with his doubts through the rest of the voyage, wondering what to do. He could keep Gilly with him in Oldtown, he supposed. The city’s walls were much more formidable than those of his father’s castle, and had thousands of men to defend them, as opposed to the handful Lord Randyll would have left at Horn Hill when he marched to Highgarden to answer his liege lord’s summons. If he did, though, he would need to hide her somehow; the Citadel did not permit its novices to keep wives or paramours, at least not openly.
Besides, if I stay with Gilly very much longer, how will I ever find the strength to leave her?
He
had
to leave her, or desert.
I said the words,
Sam reminded himself.
If I desert, it will mean my head, and how will that help Gilly?
    He considered begging Kojja Mo and her father to take the wildling girl with them to the Summer Isles. That path had its perils too, however. When the
Cinnamon Wind
left Oldtown, she would need to cross the Redwyne Straits again, and this time she might not be so fortunate. What if the wind died, and the Summer Islanders found themselves becalmed? If the tales he’d heard were true, Gilly would be carried off for a thrall or salt wife, and the babe was like to be chucked into the sea as a nuisance.
    It has to be Horn Hill,
Sam finally decided.
Once we reach Oldtown I’ll hire a wagon and some horses and take her there myself.
That way he could make certain of the castle and its garrison, and if any part of what he saw or heard gave him pause, he could just turn around and bring Gilly back to Oldtown.
    They reached Oldtown on a cold damp morning, when the fog was so thick that the beacon of the Hightower was the only part of the city to be seen. A boom stretched across the harbor, linking two dozen rotted hulks. Just behind it stood a line of warships, anchored by three big dromonds and Lord Hightower’s towering four-decked banner ship, the
Honor of Oldtown.
Once again the
Cinnamon Wind
had to submit to inspection. This time it was Lord Leyton’s son Gunthor who came aboard, in a cloth-of-silver cloak and a suit of grey enameled scales. Ser Gunthor had studied at the Citadel for several years and spoke the Summer Tongue, so he and Qurulu Mo adjourned to the captain’s cabin for a privy conference.
    Sam used the time to explain his plans to Gilly. “First the Citadel, to present Jon’s letters and tell them of Maester Aemon’s death. I expect the archmaesters will send a cart for his body. Then I will arrange for horses and a wagon to take you to my mother at Horn Hill. I will be back as soon as I can, but it may not be until the morrow.”
    â€œThe morrow,”