A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

to
see.”
    â€œRobert’s bastards? What of them?”
    â€œHe fathered eight, to the best of my knowing,” Varys said as he wrestled
with the saddle. “Their mothers were copper and honey, chestnut and butter,
yet the babes were all black as ravens . . . and as ill-omened,
it would seem. So when Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen slid out between your
sister’s thighs, each as golden as the sun, the truth was not hard to
glimpse.”
    Tyrion shook his head.
If she had borne only one child for her husband, it
would have been enough to disarm suspicion . . . but then she
would not have been Cersei.
“If you were not this whisperer, who
was?”
    â€œSome traitor, doubtless.” Varys tightened the cinch.
    â€œLittlefinger?”
    â€œI named no name.”
    Tyrion let the eunuch help him mount. “Lord Varys,” he said from the saddle,
“sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King’s Landing,
and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy.”
    â€œHow odd. I think quite the same of you.”

BRAN
    L ong before the first pale fingers of light pried apart Bran’s shutters,
his eyes were open.
    There were guests in Winterfell, visitors come for the harvest feast. This
morning they would be tilting at quintains in the yard. Once that prospect
would have filled him with excitement, but that was
before.
    Not now. The Walders would break lances with the squires of Lord Manderly’s
escort, but Bran would have no part of it. He must play the prince in his
father’s solar. “Listen, and it may be that you will learn something of what
lordship is all about,” Maester Luwin had said.
    Bran had never asked to be a prince. It was knighthood he had always dreamed
of; bright armor and streaming banners, lance and sword, a warhorse between his
legs. Why must he waste his days listening to old men speak of things he only
half understood?
Because you’re broken,
a voice inside reminded him.
A lord on his cushioned chair might be crippled—the Walders said their
grandfather was so feeble he had to be carried everywhere in a
litter—but not a knight on his destrier. Besides, it was his duty. “You
are your brother’s heir and the Stark in Winterfell,” Ser Rodrik said,
reminding him of how Robb used to sit with their lord father when his bannermen
came to see him.
    Lord Wyman Manderly had arrived from White Harbor two days past,
traveling by barge and litter, as he was too fat to sit a horse. With him had
come a long tail of retainers: knights, squires, lesser lords and ladies,
heralds, musicians, even a juggler, all aglitter with banners and surcoats in
what seemed half a hundred colors. Bran had welcomed them to Winterfell from
his father’s high stone seat with the direwolves carved into the arms, and
afterward Ser Rodrik had said he’d done well. If that had been the end of it,
he would not have minded. But it was only the beginning.
    â€œThe feast makes a pleasant pretext,” Ser Rodrik explained, “but a man does
not cross a hundred leagues for a sliver of duck and a sip of wine. Only those
who have matters of import to set before us are like to make the
journey.”
    Bran gazed up at the rough stone ceiling above his head. Robb would tell him
not to play the boy, he knew. He could almost hear him, and their lord father
as well.
Winter is coming, and you are almost a man grown, Bran. You have
a duty.
    When Hodor came bustling in, smiling and humming tunelessly, he found the boy
resigned to his fate. Together they got him washed and brushed. “The white
wool doublet today,” Bran commanded. “And the silver brooch. Ser Rodrik will
want me to look lordly.” As much as he could, Bran preferred to dress himself,
but there were some tasks—pulling on breeches, lacing his
boots—that vexed him. They went quicker with Hodor’s help. Once he had
been taught to do something, he did it deftly. His

hands were always gentle, though his strength was astonishing. “You could have
been a knight too, I bet,” Bran told him. “If the gods hadn’t taken your
wits, you would have been a great knight.”
    â€œHodor?” Hodor blinked at him with guileless brown eyes, eyes innocent of
understanding.
    â€œYes,” said Bran. “Hodor.” He pointed.
    On the wall beside the door hung a basket,