A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

be seen about the grounds. Four brothers took their exercise together
every day, fighting with staves and wooden shields in the Flowstone Yard. Three
of them were Freys of the Crossing, the fourth their bastard brother. They were
only there a short time, though; one morning two other brothers arrived under a
peace banner with a chest of gold, and ransomed them from the knights who’d
captured them. The six Freys all left together.
    No one ransomed the northmen, though. One fat lordling haunted the kitchens,
Hot Pie told her, always looking for a morsel. His mustache was so bushy that
it covered his mouth, and the clasp that held his cloak was a
silver-and-sapphire trident. He belonged to Lord Tywin, but the fierce, bearded
young man who liked to walk the battlements alone in a black cloak patterned
with white suns had been taken by some hedge knight who meant to

get rich off him. Sansa would have known who he was, and the fat one too, but
Arya had never taken much interest in titles and sigils. Whenever Septa Mordane
had gone on about the history of this house and that house, she was inclined to
drift and dream and wonder when the lesson would be done.
    She
did
remember Lord Cerwyn, though. His lands had been close to
Winterfell, so he and his son Cley had often visited. Yet as fate would have
it, he was the only captive who was never seen; he was abed in a tower cell,
recovering from a wound. For days and days Arya tried to work out how she might
steal past the door guards to see him. If he knew her, he would be honor bound
to help her. A lord would have gold for a certainty, they all did; perhaps he
would pay some of Lord Tywin’s own sellswords to take her to Riverrun. Father
had always said that most sellswords would betray anyone for enough
gold.
    Then one morning she spied three women in the cowled grey robes of the silent
sisters loading a corpse into their wagon. The body was sewn into a cloak of
the finest silk, decorated with a battle-axe sigil. When Arya asked who it was,
one of the guards told her that Lord Cerwyn had died. The words felt like a
kick in the belly.
He could never have helped you anyway,
she thought
as the sisters drove the wagon through the gate.
He couldn’t even help
himself, you stupid mouse.
    After that it was back to scrubbing and scurrying and listening at doors. Lord
Tywin would soon march on Riverrun, she heard. Or he would drive south to
Highgarden, no one would ever

expect that. No, he must defend King’s Landing, Stannis was the greatest
threat. He’d sent Gregor Clegane and Vargo Hoat to destroy Roose Bolton and
remove the dagger from his back. He’d sent ravens to the Eyrie, he meant to wed
the Lady Lysa Arryn and win the Vale. He’d bought a ton of silver to forge
magic swords that would slay the Stark wargs. He was writing Lady Stark to make
a peace, the Kingslayer would soon be freed.
    Though ravens came and went every day, Lord Tywin himself spent most of his
days behind closed doors with his war council. Arya caught glimpses of him, but
always from afar—once walking the walls in the company of three maesters
and the fat captive with the bushy mustache, once riding out with his lords
bannermen to visit the encampments, but most often standing in an arch of the
covered gallery watching men at practice in the yard below. He stood with his
hands locked together on the gold pommel of his longsword. They said Lord Tywin
loved gold most of all; he even
shit
gold, she heard one squire jest.
The Lannister lord was strong-looking for an old man, with stiff golden
whiskers and a bald head. There was something in his face that reminded Arya of
her own father, even though they looked nothing alike.
He has a lord’s
face, that’s all,
she told herself. She remembered hearing her lady mother
tell Father to put on his lord’s face and go deal with some matter. Father had
laughed at that. She could not imagine Lord Tywin ever laughing at
anything.
    One afternoon, while she was waiting her turn to draw a pail of water from the
well, she heard the hinges of the east gate

groaning. A party of men rode under the portcullis at a walk. When she spied
the manticore crawling across the shield of their leader, a stab of hate shot
through her.
    In the light of day, Ser Amory Lorch looked less frightening than he had by
torchlight, but he still had the pig’s eyes she recalled. One of the women