A Feast For Crows (29 page)

The old man knuckled his forehead. “My thanks, m’lord. You’re a true knight, it’s plain to see. Come, wife.” They put their shoulders to the cart again and rumbled through the gate.

Brienne trotted after them, with Podrick at her heels.
A true knight,
she thought, frowning. Inside the town she reined up. The ruins of a stable could be seen off to her left, fronting on a muddy alley. Across from it three half-dressed whores stood on the balcony of a brothel, whispering to one another. One looked a bit like a camp follower who had once come up to Brienne to ask if she had a cunt or a cock inside her breeches.

“That rounsey may be the most hideous horse I’ve ever seen,” said Ser Hyle of Podrick’s mount. “I am surprised that you’re not riding it, my lady. Do you plan to thank me for my help?”

Brienne swung down off her mare. She stood a head taller than Ser Hyle. “One day I’ll thank you in a mêlée, ser.”

“The way you thanked Red Ronnet?” Hunt laughed. He had a full, rich laugh, though his face was plain. An honest face, she’d thought once, before she learned better; shaggy brown hair, hazel eyes, a little scar by his left ear. His chin had a cleft and his nose was crooked, but he did laugh well, and often.

“Shouldn’t you be watching your gate?”

He made a wry face at her. “My cousin Alyn is off hunting outlaws. Doubtless he’ll return with the Hound’s head, gloating and covered in glory. Meanwhile, I am condemned to guard this gate, thanks to you. I hope you’re pleased, my beauty. What is it that you’re looking for?”

“A stable.”

“Over by the east gate. This one burned.”

I can see that.
“What you said to those men . . . I was with King Renly when he died, but it was some sorcery that slew him, ser. I swear it on my sword.” She put her hand upon her hilt, ready to fight if Hunt named her a liar to her face.

“Aye, and it was the Knight of Flowers who carved up the Rainbow Guard. On a good day you might have been able to defeat Ser Emmon. He was a rash fighter, and he tired easily. Royce, though? No. Ser Robar was twice the swordsman that you are . . . though you’re
not
a swordsman, are you? Is there such a word as swordswench? What quest brings the Maid to Maidenpool, I wonder?”

Searching for my sister, a maid of three-and-ten,
she almost said, but Ser Hyle would know she had no sisters. “There’s a man I seek, at a place called the Stinking Goose.”

“I thought Brienne the Beauty had no use for men.” There was a cruel edge to his smile. “The Stinking Goose. An apt name, that . . . the stinking part, at least. It’s by the harbor. First you will come with me to see his lordship.”

Brienne did not fear Ser Hyle, but he was one of Randyll Tarly’s captains. A whistle, and a hundred men would come running to defend him. “Am I to be arrested?”

“What, for Renly? Who was he? We’ve changed kings since then, some of us twice. No one cares, no one remembers.” He laid a hand lightly on her arm. “This way, if you please.”

She wrenched away. “I would thank you not to touch me.”

“Thanks at last,” he said, with a wry smile.

When last she had seen Maidenpool, the town had been a desolation, a grim place of empty streets and burned homes. Now the streets were full of pigs and children, and most of the burned buildings had been pulled down. Vegetables had been planted in the lots where some once stood; merchant’s tents and knight’s pavilions took the place of others. Brienne saw new houses going up, a stone inn rising where a wooden inn had burned, a new slate roof on the town sept. The cool autumn air rang to the sounds of saw and hammer. Men carried timber through the streets, and quarrymen drove their wagons down muddy lanes. Many wore the striding huntsman on their breasts. “The soldiers are rebuilding the town,” she said, surprised.

“They would sooner be dicing, drinking, and fucking, I don’t doubt, but Lord Randyll believes in putting idle men to work.”

She had expected to be taken to the castle. Instead, Hunt led them toward the busy harbor. The traders had returned to Maidenpool, she was pleased to see. A galley, a galleas, and a big two-masted cog were in port, along with a score of little fishing boats. More fishermen were visible out on the bay.
If the Stinking Goose yields nothing, I will take passage on a ship,
she decided. Gulltown was only a short voyage away. From there she could make her way to the Eyrie easily enough.

They found Lord Tarly in the fishmarket, doing justice.

A platform had been thrown up beside the water, from which his lordship could look down upon the men accused of crimes. To his left stood a long gallows, with ropes enough for twenty men. Four corpses swung beneath it. One looked fresh, but the other three had plainly been there for some time. A crow was pulling strips of flesh from the ripe ruins of one of the dead men. The other crows had scattered, wary of the crowd of townsfolk who’d gathered in hopes of someone’s being hanged.

Lord Randyll shared the platform with Lord Mooton, a pale, soft, fleshy man in a white doublet and red breeches, his ermine cloak pinned at the shoulder by a red-gold brooch in the shape of a salmon. Tarly wore mail and boiled leather, and a breastplate of grey steel. The hilt of a greatsword poked up above his left shoulder.
Heartsbane,
it was named, the pride of his House.

A stripling in a roughspun cloak and soiled jerkin was being heard when they came up. “I never hurt no one, m’lord,” Brienne heard him say. “I only took what the septons left when they run off. If you got to take my finger for that, do it.”

“It is customary to take a finger from a thief,” Lord Tarly replied in a hard voice, “but a man who steals from a sept is stealing from the gods.” He turned to his captain of guards. “Seven fingers. Leave his thumbs.”

“Seven?”
The thief paled. When the guards seized hold of him he tried to fight, but feebly, as if he were already maimed. Watching him, Brienne could not help think of Ser Jaime, and the way he’d screamed when Zollo’s
arakh
came flashing down.

The next man was a baker, accused of mixing sawdust in his flour. Lord Randyll fined him fifty silver stags. When the baker swore he did not have that much silver, his lordship declared that he could have a lash for every stag that he was short. He was followed by a haggard grey-faced whore, accused of giving the pox to four of Tarly’s soldiers. “Wash out her private parts with lye and throw her in a dungeon,” Tarly commanded. As the whore was dragged off sobbing, his lordship saw Brienne on the edge of the crowd, standing between Podrick and Ser Hyle. He frowned at her, but his eyes betrayed not a flicker of recognition.

A sailor off the galleas came next. His accuser was an archer of Lord Mooton’s garrison, with a bandaged hand and a salmon on his breast. “If it please m’lord, this bastid put his dagger through my hand. He said I was cheating him at dice.”

Lord Tarly took his gaze away from Brienne to consider the men before him. “Were you?”

“No, m’lord. I never.”

“For theft, I will take a finger. Lie to me and I will hang you. Shall I ask to see these dice?”

“The dice?” The archer looked to Mooton, but his lordship was gazing at the fishing boats. The bowman swallowed. “Might be I . . . them dice, they’re lucky for me, ’s true, but I . . .”

Tarly had heard enough. “Take his little finger. He can choose which hand. A nail through the palm for the other.” He stood. “We’re done. March the rest of them back to the dungeon, I’ll deal with them on the morrow.” He turned to beckon Ser Hyle forward. Brienne followed. “My lord,” she said, when she stood before him. She felt eight years old again.

“My lady. To what do we owe this . . . honor?”

“I have been sent to look for . . . for . . .” She hesitated.

“How will you find him if you do not know his name? Did you slay Lord Renly?”

“No.”

Tarly weighed the word.
He is judging me, as he judged those others.
“No,” he said at last, “you only let him die.”

He had died in her arms, his life’s blood drenching her. Brienne flinched. “It was sorcery. I never . . .”

“You
never?
” His voice became a whip. “Aye. You never should have donned mail, nor buckled on a sword. You never should have left your father’s hall. This is a war, not a harvest ball. By all the gods, I ought to ship you back to Tarth.”

“Do that and answer to the throne.” Her voice sounded high and girlish, when she wanted to sound fearless. “Podrick. In my bag you’ll find a parchment. Bring it to his lordship.”

Tarly took the letter and unrolled it, scowling. His lips moved as he read. “The king’s business. What sort of business?”

Lie to me and I will hang you.
“S-sansa Stark.”

“If the Stark girl were here, I’d know it. She’s run back north, I’ll wager. Hoping to find refuge with one of her father’s bannermen. She had best hope she chooses the right one.”

“She might have gone to the Vale instead,” Brienne heard herself blurt out, “to her mother’s sister.”

Lord Randyll gave her a contemptuous look. “Lady Lysa is dead. Some singer pushed her off a mountain. Littlefinger holds the Eyrie now . . . though not for long. The lords of the Vale are not the sort to bend their knees to some upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is counting coppers.” He handed her back her letter. “Go where you want and do as you will . . . but when you’re raped don’t look to me for justice. You will have earned it with your folly.” He glanced at Ser Hyle. “And you, ser, should be at your gate. I gave you the command there, did I not?”

“You did, my lord,” said Hyle Hunt, “but I thought—”

“You think too much.” Lord Tarly strode away.

Lysa Tully is dead.
Brienne stood beneath the gallows, the precious parchment in her hand. The crowd had dispersed, and the crows had returned to resume their feast.
A singer pushed her off a mountain.
Had the crows dined on Lady Catelyn’s sister too?

“You spoke of the Stinking Goose, my lady,” said Ser Hyle. “If you want me to show you—”

“Go back to your gate.”

A look of annoyance flashed across his face.
A plain face, not an honest one.
“If that’s your wish.”

“It is.”

“It was only a game to pass the time. We meant no harm.” He hesitated. “Ben died, you know. Cut down on the Blackwater. Farrow too, and Will the Stork. And Mark Mullendore took a wound that cost him half his arm.”

Good,
Brienne wanted to say.
Good, he deserved it.
But she remembered Mullendore sitting outside his pavilion with his monkey on his shoulder in a little suit of chain mail, the two of them making faces at each other. What was it Catelyn Stark had called them, that night at Bitterbridge?
The knights of summer.
And now it was autumn and they were falling like leaves. . . .

She turned her back on Hyle Hunt. “Podrick, come.”

The boy trotted after her, leading their horses. “Are we going to find the place? The Stinking Goose?”

“I am. You are going to the stables, by the east gate. Ask the stableman if there’s an inn where we can spend the night.”

“I will, ser. My lady.” Podrick stared at the ground as they went, kicking stones from time to time. “Do you know where it is? The Goose? The Stinking Goose, I mean.”

“No.”

“He said he’d show us. That knight. Ser Kyle.”

“Hyle.”

“Hyle. What did he do to you, ser? I mean, my lady.”

The boy may be a stumbletongue, but he’s not stupid.
“At Highgarden, when King Renly called his banners, some men played a game with me. Ser Hyle was one of them. It was a cruel game, hurtful and unchivalrous.” She stopped. “The east gate is that way. Wait for me there.”

“As you say, my lady. Ser.”

No sign marked the Stinking Goose. It took her most of an hour to find it, down a flight of wooden steps beneath a knacker’s barn. The cellar was dim and the ceiling low, and Brienne thumped her head on a beam as she entered. No geese were in evidence. A few stools were scattered about, and a bench had been shoved up against one earthen wall. The tables were old wine casks, grey and wormholed. The promised stink pervaded everything. Mostly it was wine and damp and mildew, her nose told her, but there was a little of the privy too, and something of the lichyard.

The only drinkers were three Tyroshi seamen in a corner, growling at each other through green and purple beards. They gave her a brief inspection, and one said something that made the others laugh. The proprietor stood behind a plank that had been placed across two barrels. She was a woman, round and pale and balding, with huge soft breasts swaying beneath a soiled smock. She looked as though the gods had made her out of uncooked dough.

Brienne did not dare to ask for water here. She bought a cup of wine and said, “I am looking for a man called Nimble Dick.”

“Dick Crabb. Comes in most every night.” The woman eyed Brienne’s mail and sword. “If you’re going to cut him, do it somewheres else. We don’t want no trouble with Lord Tarly.”

“I want to talk with him. Why would I do him harm?”

The woman shrugged.

“If you would nod when he comes in I’d be thankful.”

“How thankful?”

Brienne put a copper star on the plank between them and found a place in the shadows with a good view of the steps.

She tried the wine. It was oily on the tongue and there was a hair floating in it.
A hair as slender as my hopes of finding Sansa,
she thought as she plucked it out. Chasing after Ser Dontos had been fruitless, and with Lady Lysa dead the Vale no longer seemed a likely refuge.
Where are you, Lady Sansa? Did you run home to Winterfell, or are you with your husband, as Podrick seems to think?
Brienne did not want to chase the girl across the narrow sea, where even the language would be strange to her.
I will be even more a freak there, grunting and gesturing to make myself understood. They will laugh at me, as they laughed at Highgarden.
A blush stole up her cheeks as she remembered.

When Renly donned his crown, the Maid of Tarth had ridden all the way across the Reach to join him. The king himself had greeted her courteously and welcomed her to his service. Not so his lords and knights. Brienne had not expected a warm welcome. She was prepared for coldness, for mockery, for hostility. She had supped upon such meat before. It was not the scorn of the many that left her confused and vulnerable, but the kindness of the few. The Maid of Tarth had been betrothed three times, but she had never been courted until she came to Highgarden.