A Clash of Kings

“Theon?” Bran felt dizzy with relief. “Did Robb send you? Is he here too?”

“Robb’s far away. He can’t help you now.”

“Help me?” He was confused. “Don’t scare me, Theon.”

“I’m Prince Theon now. We’re both princes, Bran. Who would have dreamed it? But I’ve taken your castle, my prince.”

“Winterfell?” Bran shook his head. “No, you couldn’t .”

“Leave us, Werlag.” The man with the dirk withdrew. Theon seated himself on the bed. “I sent four men over the walls with grappling claws and ropes, and they opened a postern gate for the rest of us. My men are dealing with yours even now. I promise you, Winterfell is mine.”

Bran did not understand. “But you’re Father’s ward .”

“And now you and your brother are my wards. As soon as the fighting’s done, my men will be bringing the rest of your people together in the Great Hall. You and I are going to speak to them. You’ll tell them how you’ve yielded Winterfell to me, and command them to serve and obey their new lord as they did the old.”

“I won’t ,” said Bran. “We’ll fight you and throw you out. I never yielded, you can’t make me say I did.”

“This is no game, Bran, so don’t play the boy with me, I won’t stand for it. The castle is mine, but these people are still yours. If the prince would keep them safe, he’d best do as he’s told.” He rose and went to the door. “Someone will come dress you and carry you to the Great Hall. Think carefully on what you want to say.”

The waiting made Bran feel even more helpless than before. He sat in the window seat, staring out at dark towers and walls black as shadow. Once he thought he heard shouting beyond the Guards Hall, and something that might have been the clash of swords, but he did not have Summer’s ears to hear, nor his nose to smell. Awake, I am still broken, but when I sleep, when I’m Summer, I can run and fight and hear and smell.

He had expected that Hodor would come for him, or maybe one of the serving girls, but when the door next opened it was Maester Luwin, carrying a candle. “Bran,” he said, “you . . . know what has happened? You have been told?” The skin was broken above his left eye, and blood ran down that side of his face.

“Theon came. He said Winterfell was his now.”

The maester set down the candle and wiped the blood off his cheek. “They swam the moat. Climbed the walls with hook and rope. Came over wet and dripping, steel in hand.” He sat on the chair by the door, as fresh blood flowed. “Alebelly was on the gate, they surprised him in the turret and killed him. Hayhead’s wounded as well. I had time to send off two ravens before they burst in. The bird to White Harbor got away, but they brought down the other with an arrow.” The maester stared at the rushes. “Ser Rodrik took too many of our men, but I am to blame as much as he is. I never saw this danger, I never . . .”

Jojen saw it , Bran thought. “You better help me dress.”

“Yes, that’s so.” In the heavy ironbound chest at the foot of Bran’s bed the maester found smallclothes, breeches, and tunic. “You are the Stark in Winterfell, and Robb’s heir. You must look princely.” Together they garbed him as befit a lord.

“Theon wants me to yield the castle,” Bran said as the maester was fastening the cloak with his favorite wolf’s-head clasp of silver and jet.

“There is no shame in that. A lord must protect his smallfolk. Cruel places breed cruel peoples, Bran, remember that as you deal with these ironmen. Your lord father did what he could to gentle Theon, but I fear it was too little and too late.”

The ironman who came for them was a squat thick-bodied man with a coal-black beard that covered half his chest. He bore the boy easily enough, though he looked none too happy with the task. Rickon’s bedchamber was a half turn down the steps. The four-year-old was cranky at being woken. “I want Mother,” he said. “I want her. And Shaggydog too.”

“Your mother is far away, my prince.” Maester Luwin pulled a bed-robe over the child’s head. “But I’m here, and Bran.” He took Rickon by the hand and led him out.

Below, they came on Meera and Jojen being herded from their room by a bald man whose spear was three feet taller than he was. When Jojen looked at Bran, his eyes were green pools full of sorrow. Other ironmen had rousted the Freys. “Your brother’s lost his kingdom,” Little Walder told Bran. “You’re no prince now, just a hostage.”

“So are you,” Jojen said, “and me, and all of us.”

“No one was talking to you, frogeater.”

One of the ironmen went before them carrying a torch, but the rain had started again and soon drowned it out. As they hurried across the yard they could hear the direwolves howling in the godswood. I hope Summer wasn’t hurt falling from the tree.