A Clash of Kings

“Weasel.” Weese’s voice cracked like a whip. She never saw where he came from, but suddenly he was right in front of her. “Give me that. Took you long enough.” He snatched the sword from her fingers, and dealt her a stinging slap with the back of his hand. “Next time be quicker about it.”

For a moment she had been a wolf again, but Weese’s slap took it all away and left her with nothing but the taste of her own blood in her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue when he hit her. She hated him for that.

“You want another?” Weese demanded. “You’ll get it too. I’ll have none of your insolent looks. Get down to the brewhouse and tell Tuffleberry that I have two dozen barrels for him, but he better send his lads to fetch them or I’ll find someone wants ‘em worse.” Arya started off, but not quick enough for Weese. “You run if you want to eat tonight,” he shouted, his promises of a plump crisp capon already forgotten. “And don’t be getting lost again, or I swear I’ll beat you bloody.”

You won’t , Arya thought. You won’t ever again. But she ran. The old gods of the north must have been guiding her steps. Halfway to the brewhouse, as she passing under the stone bridge that arched between Widow’s Tower and Kingspyre, she heard harsh, growling laughter. Rorge came around a corner with three other men, the manticore badge of Ser Amory sewn over their hearts. When he saw her, he stopped and grinned, showing a mouthful of crooked brown teeth under the leather flap he wore sometimes to cover the hole in his face. “Yoren’s little cunt,” he called her. “Guess we know why that black bastard wanted you on the Wall, don’t we?” He laughed again, and the others laughed with him. “Where’s your stick now?” Rorge demanded suddenly, the smile gone as quick as it had come. “Seems to me I promised to fuck you with it.” He took a step toward her. Arya edged backward. “Not so brave now that I’m not in chains, are you?”

“I saved you.” She kept a good yard between them, ready to run quick as a snake if he made a grab for her.

“Owe you another fucking for that, seems like. Did Yoren pump your cunny, or did he like that tight little ass better?”

“I’m looking for Jaqen,” she said. “There’s a message.”

Rorge halted. Something in his eyes . . . could it be that he was scared of Jaqen H’ghar? “The bathhouse. Get out of my way.”

Arya whirled and ran, swift as a deer, her feet flying over the cobbles all the way to the bathhouse. She found Jaqen soaking in a tub, steam rising around him as a serving girl sluiced hot water over his head. His long hair, red on one side and white on the other, fell down across his shoulders, wet and heavy.

She crept up quiet as a shadow, but he opened his eyes all the same. “She steals in on little mice feet, but a man hears,” he said. How could he hear me? she wondered, and it seemed as if he heard that as well. “The scuff of leather on stone sings loud as warhorns to a man with open ears. Clever girls go barefoot.”

“I have a message.” Arya eyed the serving girl uncertainly. When she did not seem likely to go away, she leaned in until her mouth was almost touching his ear. “Weese,” she whispered.

Jaqen H’ghar closed his eyes again, floating languid, half-asleep. “Tell his lordship a man shall attend him at his leisure.” His hand moved suddenly, splashing hot water at her, and Arya had to leap back to keep from getting drenched.

When she told Tuffleberry what Weese had said, the brewer cursed loudly. “You tell Weese my lads got duties to attend to, and you tell him he’s a pox-ridden bastard too, and the seven hells will freeze over before he gets another horn of my ale. I’ll have them barrels within the hour or Lord Tywin will hear of it, see if he don’t.”

Weese cursed too when Arya brought back that message, even though she left out the pox-ridden bastard part. He fumed and threatened, but in the end he rounded up six men and sent them off grumbling to fetch the barrels down to the brewhouse.

Supper that evening was a thin stew of barley, onion, and carrots, with a wedge of stale brown bread. One of the women had taken to sleeping in Weese’s bed, and she got a piece of ripe blue cheese as well, and a wing off the capon that Weese had spoken of that morning. He ate the rest himself, the grease running down in a shiny line through the boils that festered at the corner of his mouth. The bird was almost gone when he glanced up from his trencher and saw Arya staring. “Weasel, come here.”

A few mouthfuls of dark meat still clung to one thigh. He forgot, but now he’s remembered , Arya thought. It made her feel bad for telling Jaqen to kill him. She got off the bench and went to the head of the table.