A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

I’ll spoon one out and feed it to my bitch.” A shove
sent her stumbling to the floor. Her hem caught on a loose nail in the
splintered wooden bench and ripped as she fell. “You’ll mend that before you
sleep,” Weese announced as he pulled the last bit of meat off the capon. When
he was finished he sucked his fingers noisily, and threw the bones to his ugly
spotted dog.
    â€œWeese,” Arya whispered that night as she bent over the

tear in her shift. “Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling,” she said, calling
a name every time she pushed the bone needle through the undyed wool. “The
Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King
Joffrey, Queen Cersei.” She wondered how much longer she would have to include
Weese in her prayer, and drifted off to sleep dreaming that on the morrow,
when she woke, he’d be dead.
    But it was the sharp toe of Weese’s boot that woke her, as ever. The main
strength of Lord Tywin’s host would ride this day, he told them as they broke
their fast on oatcakes. “Don’t none of you be thinking how easy it’ll be here
once m’lord of Lannister is gone,” he warned. “The castle won’t grow no
smaller, I promise you that, only now there’ll be fewer hands to tend to it.
You lot of slugabeds are going to learn what work is now, yes you
are.”
    Not from you.
Arya picked at her oaten cake. Weese frowned at her, as
if he smelled her secret. Quickly she dropped her gaze to her food, and dared
not raise her eyes again.
    Pale light filled the yard when Lord Tywin Lannister took his leave of
Harrenhal. Arya watched from an arched window halfway up the Wailing Tower. His
charger wore a blanket of enameled crimson scales and gilded crinet and
chamfron, while Lord Tywin himself sported a thick ermine cloak. His brother
Ser Kevan looked near as splendid. No less than four standard-bearers went
before them, carrying huge crimson banners emblazoned with the golden lion.
Behind the Lannisters came their great lords and captains. Their banners flared
and flapped, a pageant of color:

red ox and golden mountain, purple unicorn and bantam rooster, brindled boar
and badger, a silver ferret and a juggler in motley, stars and sunbursts,
peacock and panther, chevron and dagger, black hood and blue beetle and green
arrow.
    Last of all came Ser Gregor Clegane in his grey plate steel, astride a stallion
as bad-tempered as his rider. Polliver rode beside him, with the black dog
standard in his hand and Gendry’s horned helm on his head. He was a tall man,
but he looked no more than a half-grown boy when he rode in his master’s
shadow.
    A shiver crept up Arya’s spine as she watched them pass under the great iron
portcullis of Harrenhal. Suddenly she knew that she had made a terrible
mistake.
I’m so stupid,
she thought. Weese did not matter, no more
than Chiswyck had.
These
were the men who mattered, the ones she
ought to have killed. Last night she could have whispered any of them dead, if
only she hadn’t been so mad at Weese for hitting her and lying about the capon.
Lord Tywin, why didn’t I say Lord Tywin?
    Perhaps it was not too late to change her mind. Weese was not killed yet. If
she could find Jaqen, tell him . . .
    Hurriedly, Arya ran down the twisting steps, her chores forgotten. She heard
the rattle of chains as the portcullis was slowly lowered, its spikes sinking
deep into the ground . . . and then another sound, a shriek of
pain and fear.
    A dozen people got there before her, though none was coming any too close. Arya
squirmed between them. Weese was sprawled across the cobbles, his throat a red
ruin, eyes gaping sightlessly

up at a bank of grey cloud. His ugly spotted dog stood on his chest, lapping at
the blood pulsing from his neck, and every so often ripping a mouthful of flesh
out of the dead man’s face.
    Finally someone brought a crossbow and shot the spotted dog dead while she was
worrying at one of Weese’s ears.
    â€œDamnedest thing,” she heard a man say. “He had that bitch dog since she was
a pup.”
    â€œThis place is cursed,” the man with the crossbow said.
    â€œIt’s Harren’s ghost, that’s what it is,” said Goodwife Amabel. “I’ll not
sleep here another night, I swear it.”
    Arya lifted her gaze from the dead man and his dead