A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

to Lordsport
he spied her wandering forlornly about the deck. “Milord, a moment,” she
called after him. “As it please milord . . .”
    â€œDid she?” Esgred asked as Theon hurried her past the cog. “Please
milord?”
    He saw no sense in being coy with this one. “For a time. Now she wants to be
my salt wife.”
    â€œOho. Well, she’d profit from some salting, no doubt. Too soft and bland, that
one. Or am I wrong?”
    â€œYou’re not wrong.”
Soft and bland. Precisely. How had she
known?
    He had told Wex to wait at the inn. The common room was so crowded that Theon
had to push his way through the door. Not a seat was to be had at bench
nor table. Nor did he see his squire.
“Wex,”
he shouted
over the din
and clatter.
If he’s up with one of those
poxy whores, I’ll strip the hide
off him,
he was thinking when he finally spied
the boy, dicing near the
hearth . . . and winning too, by the look of the pile of coins
before him.
    â€œTime to go,” Theon announced. When the boy paid him no mind, he seized him
by the ear and pulled him from the game. Wex

grabbed up a fistful of coppers and came along without a word. That was one of
the things Theon liked best about him. Most squires have loose tongues, but Wex
had been born dumb . . . which didn’t seem to keep him from
being clever as any twelve-year-old had a right to be. He was a baseborn son of
one of Lord Botley’s half brothers. Taking him as squire had been part of the
price Theon had paid for his horse.
    When Wex saw Esgred, his eyes went round.
You’d think he’d never seen a
woman before,
Theon thought. “Esgred will be riding with me back to Pyke.
Saddle the horses, and be quick about it.”
    The boy had ridden in on a scrawny little garron from Lord Balon’s stable, but
Theon’s mount was quite another sort of beast. “Where did you find that
hellhorse?” Esgred asked when she saw him, but from the way she laughed he
knew she was impressed.
    â€œLord Botley bought him in Lannisport a year past, but he proved to be too
much horse for him, so Botley was pleased to sell.” The Iron Islands were too
sparse and rocky for breeding good horses. Most of the islanders were
indifferent riders at best, more comfortable on the deck of a longship than in
the saddle. Even the lords rode garrons or shaggy Harlaw ponies, and ox carts
were more common than drays. The smallfolk too poor to own either
one pulled their
own plows through the thin, stony soil.
    But Theon had spent ten years in Winterfell, and did not intend to go to war
without a good mount beneath him. Lord Botley’s misjudgment was his good
fortune: a stallion with a temper as black as his hide, larger than a courser
if not quite so

big as most destriers. As Theon was not quite so big as most knights, that
suited him admirably. The animal had fire in his eyes. When he’d met his new
owner, he’d pulled back his lips and tried to bite off his face.
    â€œDoes he have a name?” Esgred asked Theon as he mounted.
    â€œSmiler.” He gave her a hand, and pulled her up in front of him, where he
could put his arms around her as they rode. “I knew a man once who told me
that I smiled at the wrong things.”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œOnly by the lights of those who smile at nothing.” He thought of his father
and his uncle Aeron.
    â€œAre you smiling now, my lord prince?”
    â€œOh, yes.” Theon reached around her to take the reins. She was almost of a
height with him. Her hair could have used a wash and she had a faded pink scar
on her pretty neck, but he liked the smell of her, salt and sweat and
woman.
    The ride back to Pyke promised to be a good deal more interesting than the ride
down had been.
    When they were well beyond Lordsport, Theon put a hand on her breast. Esgred
reached up and plucked it away. “I’d keep both hands on the reins, or this
black beast of yours is like to fling us both off and kick us to
death.”
    â€œI broke him of that.” Amused, Theon behaved himself for a while, chatting
amiably of the weather (grey and overcast, as it had been since he arrived,
with frequent rains) and telling her of the men he’d killed in the Whispering
Wood. When he reached the

part about coming
that
close to the Kingslayer himself, he slid his
hand back up