A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

father, however noble.
    The tower her brother had set aside for her use was the very same that she and
Lysa had shared as maids. It would feel good to sleep on a featherbed again,
with a warm fire in the hearth; when she was rested the world would seem less
bleak.
    But outside her chambers she found Utherydes Wayn waiting with two women clad
in grey, their faces cowled save for their eyes. Catelyn knew at once why they
were here.
“Ned?”
    The sisters lowered their gaze. Utherydes said, “Ser Cleos brought him from
King’s Landing, my lady.”
    â€œTake me to him,” she commanded.
    They had laid him out on a trestle table and covered him with a banner, the
white banner of House Stark with its grey direwolf sigil. “I would look on
him,” Catelyn said.
    â€œOnly the bones remain, my lady.”
    â€œI would look on him,” she repeated.
    One of the silent sisters turned down the banner.
    Bones,
Catelyn thought.
This is not Ned, this is not the man I
loved, the father of my children.
His hands were clasped together over his
chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were
not Ned’s hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in
Ned’s surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart,
but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many

nights, the arms that had held her. The head had been rejoined to the body with
fine silver wire, but one skull looks much like another, and in those empty
hollows she found no trace of her lord’s dark grey eyes, eyes that could be
soft as a fog or hard as stone.
They gave his eyes to crows,
she
remembered.
    Catelyn turned away. “That is not his sword.”
    â€œIce was not returned to us, my lady,” Utherydes said. “Only Lord Eddard’s
bones.”
    â€œI suppose I must thank the queen for even that much.”
    â€œThank the Imp, my lady. It was his doing.”
    One day I will thank them all.
“I am grateful for your service,
sisters,” Catelyn said, “but I must lay another task upon you. Lord Eddard
was a Stark, and his bones must be laid to rest beneath Winterfell.”
They
will make a statue of him, a stone likeness that will sit in the dark with a
direwolf at his feet and a sword across his knees.
“Make certain the
sisters have fresh horses, and aught else they need for the journey,” she told
Utherydes Wayn. “Hal Mollen will escort them back to Winterfell, it is his
place as captain of guards.” She gazed down at the bones that were all that
remained of her lord and love. “Now leave me, all of you. I would be alone
with Ned tonight.”
    The women in grey bowed their heads.
The silent sisters do not speak to
the living,
Catelyn remembered dully,
but some say they can talk to
the dead.
And how she envied that . . .

DAENERYS
    T he drapes kept out the dust and heat of the streets, but they could not
keep out disappointment. Dany climbed inside wearily, glad for the refuge from
the sea of Qartheen eyes. “Make way,” Jhogo shouted at the crowd from
horseback, snapping his whip, “make way, make way for the Mother of
Dragons.”
    Reclining on cool satin cushions, Xaro Xhoan Daxos poured ruby-red wine
into matched goblets of jade and gold, his hands sure and steady despite the
sway of the palanquin. “I see a deep sadness written upon your face, my light
of love.” He offered her a goblet. “Could it be the sadness of a lost
dream?”
    â€œA dream delayed, no more.” Dany’s tight silver collar was chafing against
her throat. She unfastened it and flung it aside. The collar was set with an
enchanted amethyst that Xaro swore would ward her against all poisons. The
Pureborn were notorious for offering poisoned wine to those they thought
dangerous, but they had not given Dany so much as a cup of water.
They
never saw me for a queen,
she thought bitterly.
I was only an
afternoon’s amusement, a horse girl with a curious pet.
    Rhaegal hissed and dug sharp black claws into her bare shoulder as Dany
stretched out a hand for the wine. Wincing, she shifted him to her other
shoulder, where he could claw her gown instead of her skin. She was garbed
after the Qartheen fashion.

Xaro had warned her that the Enthroned would never listen to a Dothraki, so she
had taken care to go before them in