A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

and that was just the sound the air made blowing through
the cracks in the stones where they had fissured from the heat. If there
were
ghosts in Harrenhal, they never troubled her. It was the living
men she feared, Weese and Ser Gregor Clegane and Lord Tywin Lannister himself,
who kept his apartments in Kingspyre Tower, still the tallest and mightiest of
all, though lopsided beneath the weight of the slagged stone that made it look
like some giant half-melted black
candle.
    She wondered what Lord Tywin would do if she marched up to him and confessed to
being Arya Stark, but she knew she’d never get near enough to talk to him, and
anyhow he’d never believe her if she did, and afterward Weese would beat her
bloody.
    In his own small strutting way, Weese was nearly as scary as Ser Gregor. The
Mountain swatted men like flies, but most of the time he did not
even seem to know the fly was there. Weese
always
knew
you were there, and what
you were doing, and sometimes what you were thinking. He would hit at the
slightest provocation, and he had a dog who was near as
bad as he was, an ugly
spotted bitch that smelled worse than any dog Arya had ever known. Once she saw
him set the dog on a latrine boy who’d
annoyed him. She tore a big chunk out of
the boy’s calf while Weese laughed.
    It took him only three days to earn the place of honor in her nightly prayers.
“Weese,” she would whisper, first of all. “Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff
the Sweetling. The Tickler and

the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen
Cersei.” If she let herself forget even one of them, how would she ever find
him again to kill him?
    On the road Arya had felt like a sheep, but Harrenhal turned her into a mouse.
She was grey as a mouse in her scratchy wool shift, and like a mouse she kept
to the crannies and crevices and dark holes of the castle, scurrying out of the
way of the mighty.
    Sometimes she thought they were
all
mice within those thick walls,
even the knights and the great lords. The size of the castle made even Gregor
Clegane seem small. Harrenhal covered thrice as much ground as Winterfell, and
its buildings were so much larger they could scarcely be compared. Its stables
housed a thousand horses, its godswood covered twenty acres, its kitchens were
as large as Winterfell’s Great Hall, and its own great hall, grandly named the
Hall of a Hundred Hearths even though it only had thirty and some (Arya had
tried to count them, twice, but she came up with thirty-three once and
thirty-five the other time) was so cavernous that Lord Tywin could have feasted
his entire host, though he never did. Walls, doors, halls, steps, everything
was built to an inhuman scale that made Arya remember the stories Old Nan used
to tell of the giants who lived beyond the Wall.
    And as lords and ladies never notice the little grey mice under their feet,
Arya heard all sorts of secrets just by keeping her ears open as she went about
her duties. Pretty Pia from the buttery was a slut who was working her way
through every knight in the castle. The wife of the gaoler was with child, but
the real

father was either Ser Alyn Stackspear or a singer called Whitesmile Wat. Lord
Lefford made mock of ghosts at table, but always kept a candle burning by his
bed. Ser Dunaver’s squire Jodge could not hold his water when he slept. The
cooks despised Ser Harys Swyft and spit in all his food. Once she even
overheard Maester Tothmure’s serving girl confiding to her brother about some
message that said Joffrey was a bastard and not the rightful king at all.
“Lord Tywin told him to burn the letter and never speak such filth again,”
the girl whispered.
    King Robert’s brothers Stannis and Renly had joined the fighting, she heard.
“And both of them kings now,” Weese said. “Realm’s got more kings than a
castle’s got rats.” Even Lannister men questioned how long Joffrey would hold
the Iron Throne. “The lad’s got no army but them gold cloaks, and he’s ruled
by a eunuch, a dwarf, and a woman,” she heard a lordling mutter in his cups.
“What good will the likes of them be if it comes to battle?” There was always
talk of Beric Dondarrion. A fat archer once said the Bloody Mummers had slain
him, but the others only laughed. “Lorch killed the man at Rushing Falls, and
the