Chapter Text
As dawn broke the sky in two, tearing it apart with its rosy fingers, the new light shone on all the lands around Winterfell, on the tiled rooves of Winter Town. The latest dust of summer snows glittered as the light hit it at an angle, and the shadows of night shortened, receded, and diminished as if they were supplicants at the court of the Sun kneeling before it took the throne. But the Sun in the North was always false, dimmed by the clouds—and perhaps it was the same in the South for all she knew. The only crowned King she’d known, Robert of House Baratheon, was also dimmed, and fat, like the false Sun of the North. Her father, having gone to the South for his friend, had been killed, and it made her wrathful beyond reason, especially for a girl of ten name days.
These things and others Arya thought whilst looking out of the grey granite battlements of Winterfell. She had taken it as a habit to awaken early, before dawn. Syrio had told her that men without scruples and scrupulous men, if they want to be effective in their aims, had in common that they woke early. Before the swordmaster’s arrival, Arya always rose before Sansa, but never earlier than the fourth hour after dawn. By that time, all the people of the castle would already be active after their own tasks; now that she was awake at the same time they awoke, Arya could see them begin their labour. She’d learnt, therefore, of what was expected of her as an employer.
The most significant expense of the smallfolk, she’d reckoned, was the foodstuffs. It had become a custom, since the days of her six-times-great-grandfather, that the employer provide a breaker of the nightly fast—and Arya did have fun speaking with all of them around the table, having had it set for them all the night prior—a mid-morning light repast, a larger dinner around mid-day, and finally an undermeal in the mid-afternoon after which they’d hurry to finish their tasks before returning to their homes to have supper with their families.
As for the rent due to Winterfell for inhabiting Winter Town and all the surrounding lands, only a few who could pay it in coin—nominally, five traders who connected Winterfell with White Harbour.
Syrio explained to her that, soon, they would not be able to, since, when the North declared independence from the Iron Throne, the dragons, stags, moons, and copper stars would cease to be tender. It was not that the old coins would be worthless, but their value would be relegated to the value of the metal they were made with and not the nominal value minted on their faces.
Having tender been explained to her, Arya made her worries regarding the matter known to her council. She would not have it: “I may be a child, but my father would not have wanted this, and Robb, if he knew of it where he is now, would not allow it,” she said. None were too concerned, for they would keep recognising golden dragons and silver moons at least for the duration of the war, and their value was tied to the metal they were made of rather than the face impressed on them. They said that they did not know precisely how to deal with a new currency—it is not every day, after all, that a part of a kingdom secedes to create a new one. Arya, however, insisted that they ought to craft a way because she could not bear to think about poor families seeing their savings eaten into nothing, because she saw the principle itself as more relevant for her than the simple necessity of extolling rent, because she was the acting lady of Winterfell in her brother’s asbsence, and they would heed her words. “Golden dragons and silver moons, you all said, have value for the face of the king and for the gold their made of. But what of the coppers? The smallfolk rarely see the silver and the gold coins, but they see the coppers, which, unlike the former two, are worth little if not for the things minted on it to make it a coin; right? The North is independent; my brother has declared it. We must understand our independence not for the whims of my kingly brother, that King Robb is not one to be seized with whim, that he is not capricious, and if he accepted the Lords’ hails and crown it was for what he deems and sees as the good of the North,” she said.
Syrio, having had experience as the First Sword of Braavos, protecting the Sealord, told the rest of them of some strange, to Arya's judgement, instruments employed by the State of Braavos and by the Iron Bank. The others, however, deemed these too complex to implement on a whim. Tyrion, still distrusted by most, suggested then some form of temporary promise; Maester Luwin refined Tyrion’s suggestion by looking in the archives for legal instruments used in the past. Due to her not having the necessary skills and knowledge to draught the papers and say the words, her council did that for her, and she took care to have everything that was written or that she would have to say explained to her. After all the things discussed, Arya called the five traders to the Hall, where she made a pact of credit with them, with the assistance of Maester Luwin, without whom she could never have done it: Arya would not require payment until a new currency would be established, but they, in turn, would commit to pay back the exact equivalent plus a small amount in interest to recuperate the amount that Winterfell would need to borrow to operate without their revenue. In turn, she did they did the opposite for the smallfolk who did not hold but with copper coins: they were distributed pacts of debit that they could use, within the lands surrounding Winterfell, in lieu of coins, which gave any holder of the pact a claim to an equivalent amount of the future currency.
As for rent of the coinless, the majority of the smallfolk, they paid it in hours of free labour.
“It sounds awfully like slavery,” Arya told Syrio.
“Syrio does not think it is,” he replied. “Your House owns the land and allows your people to live onit, farm it, or build on it. Your people, Syrio gathers, must pay rent. In Braavos, this would not be considered slavery, Arya Stark: only a payment in nature.”
“I am not sure.”
“Imagine Syrio sells apples. Arya Stark wants an apple but has no coin. Syrio tells Arya: ’a girl must help Syrio lift this barrel of apples on the cart, and then she can have an apple.’ Is this slavery? Syrio does not think so.”
“But land and houses are not apples! It’s not the same thing!” Arya protested. “You don’t need an apple to live, but everybody needs somewhere to sleep.”
“There is always the forests and the streets.”
All these considerations were complicated and often dull, but Syrio Forel, Ser Rodrik Cassel, Maester Luwin, Mors Umber—and even Tyrion!—were helping her effectively. Syrio would remind her of the efforts that Robb and Jon, her brothers, were spending warring in the South, and how she ought to them to look after their home, plus, he continued to train her in water dancing. Ser Rodrik looked after the two hundred men-at-arms in her name, and he would tell her of the various formations and drills he put them through. Maester Luwin, for his part, was the most adept at running the parchments and scrolls, keeping count of all things that needed to be counted and sent orders for things found lacking; he gave her lessons in governance, explaining to her the same things that, to his words, he had taught Robb. Mors Umber, in his towering size, counselled her on the relationships with the other Northern Houses. He’d helped her negotiate a deal for coal from the Houses of the Sheepshead Hills and ensured none of the Northern Heirs and second sons, who Robb had convinced to stay in Winterfell for the duration of the war, acted in manners untoward in her regard. Tyrion, scion of the enemy, took his “guesthood”—he was more a hostage than a guest, but Jon and Robb had left instructions that he be treated well—with little offence. For all his swag in conversation and swagger in gait, he was among the first to offer condolences when the dark raven arrived, bringing the tidings of father’s execution. He’d admitted that he liked Arya, all full of energy and will, and so he’d stay with her and advise her on matters that were not sensitive with earnest counsel, which oft proved itself correct.
“A girl is here before Syrio Forel,” Syrio said from behind her. “He is impressed.”
“I took your lesson at heart.”
“Is a girl ready for her lesson?”
“Always.”
They descended the stairs towards the courtyard. There, they began their training. According to Syrio, Arya was improving, and while far from proficiency and even further from mastery, she was approaching competence. He had tested her by pitting her against the youngest Northern Heirs and second sons. She had managed to best most of those younger than her, about half of those her age after a few bouts, but only some of the older boys.
“Again,” Syrio told her when he disarmed her.
Arya did as she was told, staying light on her feet and relaxing her grip on Needle. However, once more, Syrio disarmed her.
“Again.”
“Again.”
“Again.”
Boiling frustration and rough enjoyment coursed through her veins as the training continued. At the same time, she hated not being able to hit her instructor, and she loved the effort of the challenge. Sometimes, Syrio corrected her posture; at other times, the forms. He spoke of the alignment of the cutting edge with the target and the direction of the cut, he spoke of the necessary force and timing of thrusts, and he spoke of the importance of line of sight and not giving away one’s strikes with telling eyes or with the body.
As the morning became brighter, coming in truth out of its shy hiding behind the faraway hills, some of the Northern Heirs came out to see Arya train or to do some training of their own.
Syrio hit her hard on the forearm and Arya cried out.
“A girl is not paying attention.”
He was right, she picked up Needle once more and charged more aggressively towards him. Will is necessary for fighting, but for all her effort she was unsuccessful, falling on her arse after just two exchanges.
“Fury can help,” Syrio said. “Anger is fuel, rage is fuel. Syrio has told a girl that his first kill, back in Braavos, was driven by his opponent questioning his honour.
And yet, Syrio is larger than a girl, and when a girl charges in fury, he can easily make her fall.”
“But you are stronger than I am!” Arya said. “It’s not fair.”
“A girl ought not to be petulant if she wants to learn. What do we always say?”
“Every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes us better,” Arya repeated Syrio’s adage.
“Just so. You seem to understand well, child, that fear cuts deeper than blades. Yes, with all her charging into her opponent, a girl has abandoned fright.”
“You told me I should.”
“Just so. And Syrio commends you on your success. Listen to me carefully, boy,” Syrio said. “Fear must not control you, but it is valaro—of all men—for a reason. A man walks on his path and encounters a vicious fiend coming from the opposite direction: he should not become stone with fright, boy, but he should recognise that the beast is a threat. What you must abandon is not fear itself, but the feeling of it that causes you to stop thinking. You must instead recognise the object. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“Just so. And Syrio sees that anger shares this with fear,” he continued. “When Arya Stark is wrathful, she is strong. Yes? Oxen are strong, but they are still under the yoke of men. If a girl is seized by wrath, her eyes are covered by winkers: she is taken, with the torch before her to burn the enemy. Good, just so, but when she does not look, she risks burning herself, tripping, and failing to injure the enemy.”
Arya nodded along, setting her posture right. Syrio kept talking while guiding her through the moves.
“Syrio once took a contract with a rich man. Syrio would follow him to guard the rich man from threats. The rich man had a love for brothels,” he disarmed her again, but she ducked under the strike of his wooden sword.
Arya scrambled to get Needle off the ground and back into her hands,
“I was told that many men love brothels,” she said, remembering Theon’s escapades to Winter Town’s brothel and how he would talk about it with Jon and Robb.
“Many do, but this man was of queer disposition, child. Most men go to brothels to get service for themselves; this man used to go there to see others getting service,” thrust, parry, dodge, retreat. “Let Syrio tell you, boy,” he continued, “of all tastes Syrion has encountered, he has seen not one weirder. A girl would assume that men ought to identify with the man, that the whore was mere object. This did not apply to Syrio’s employer. He would not care about the client, so much so that he would ask him to wear a mask. The man was, essentially, a prop. What the rich man was interested in was the woman. He was obsessed to see for himself, close up, if she enjoyed the act. Syrio always found it obscene. Syrio also finds Arya Stark’s rage just as obscene, obsessive.”
“How dare you?” Arya thrust hard into Syrio’s guard. Syrio, for his part, backstepped gracefully.
“A girl is like Syrio’s former employer in her obsession, like the whore in her obscenity.”
Arya snarled and threw herself against Syrio, who sidestepped and hit her behind the knee with his wooden sword.
“A girl’s rage is justified,” Arya argued, getting up from the ground and attempting to thrust again.
“Just so, but it does not mean that it is not obscene. Which of the three characters is in the worst position: Syrio’s former employer, the brothel client, or the whore?”
“The whore for sure,” Arya said, dodging a strike from Syrio.
“Why?”
“She’s been made to be an object,” Arya reasoned.
“Has she, now? And yet the brothel client is blindfolded, just a prop. He is the object. The client may be having his way with her, but he is a Myrish machine, basculating mechanically. See how Syrio’s employer is interested not in the client, but in the whore.”
“So she’s not in the worst position?” Arya asked, catching her breath before lunging again.
“No, she is in the worst position, but not for the reason you said,” Syrio replied, defending himself. “A girl must imagine her: she is laying there in bed, she is not enjoying the act, but she knows that she is expected to show enjyment. She is not a still thing, nor is she a moving thing. She is a a person, yes, but more than that: she is forced to be a person, even when she’d prefer not to be.”
“Someone forced to be a person?”
“Just so.”
“And how does that relate to me?” Arya asked, confused.
“That forcing of being the poor whore goes through is constituted by being made manifest, by putting on the stage what oughts to be off scene: she is therefore obscene. The rage a girl feels makes her act in ways she does not think about. She knows she should lash out, she does not want to feel weak. A girl makes the rage her instrument and shield at once, proffering it to Syrio when she attacks him. Fix your back; a girl is too hunchbacked. Look at our position,” he said, grabbing the tip of Needle. “You could have used this line of attack. This blindness, boy, is your obscenity.”
Arya nodded and followed Syrio’s hand, “And what of your former employer and his obession? Why do I embody it, according to you? Am I a pervert?”
“Just so, but not only,” Syrio said. “You tell Syrio why he may think this of you.”
“Because I...,” she hesitated. He pressed her with a threat to her legs, and she stepped back. “I don’t know!”
“What is a pervert?” Syrio asked.
“Someone who likes to watch people hold hands?” Arya replied, unsure.
Syrio smiled at her.
“Syrio forgets, sometimes, that Arya Stark has celebrated but ten name days. No, child, that is not a pervert. A pervert is one who is been diverted from the proper course. Why is Syrio’s former employer a pervert? Out of which proper cours has be been led?”
“He should have stayed with his wife.”
“Just so. And why was he so interested in the expression of enjoyment on the whore’s face?”
“I... I don’t know,” Arya admitted.
“Because, child, he wanted to be sure that his presence made the whore happy, even when she was not, even when the whore cared naught of him being there while she was being used. And why is that?”
“He needed to feel wanted there, didn’t he?” Arya observed.
“Just so, but not only. He also wanted to feel that she was not faking it, even if both knew she was. If the whore showed she was faking it, the rich man would worry that his own wife faked enjoying when he fu-... erm, held hands with her. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t,” Arya said, attacking harder. “I don’t understand how I am a pervert, and an obsessive one at that.”
“Syrio sees you here, trying to hit him in anger. A girl is strong, and yet she always fails,” he said, disarming her once more. “Always the same thing, a girl attacks him and Syrio disarms her. He must then ask his student why keeping the same strategy? If Arya Stark just wants to vent and hit things, she might as well use a straw dummy. But Arya Stark does not want a staw dummy; she wants to be seen striving, she wants to get hit, she wants to fail. A girl takes enjoyment in failure, because it justifies why she could not save her father, even if no one asked or expected her to do it for a girl has celebrated but ten name days. Arya Stark, therefore, needs to fail, to be defeated for to keep up the illusion of strength,” he said, pointing his wooden sword at her neck.
“You make no sense: the one who is defeated is not strong. I don’t want to fail!”
“And yet you still do. Every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes us better. It is true that who is strong now is not defeated, but even stronger he will be the more he fails. Fail, Syrio is not telling a girl not to fail. Continuous failure would not be an issue if a girl learnt from it, but she keeps attacking in anger. The proper course, Syrio does not mean it morally; the proper course is that wich leads to fulfil your aims: it is the path of strength. Arya Stark is an obsessive pervert because she keeps walking on the wrong path: the wrong path because she lets rage flow unrestrained instead of harnessing it into betterment, she keeps doing it because she keeps wrath free even when Syrio corrects her. Syrio must tell her the truth because he is her teacher: striving is noble and just, but striving to fail is no striving at all but the mere appearence of it.”
“Ygritte said that the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must,” Arya protested. “Am I supposed not to fight, then? Am I supposed to accept my failure, resigning to be weak? I will not have that.”
“Syrio Forel said none of those things. If Arya Stark does not want pity, she must understand what Syrio says. It is true: the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. But the appearence of strength is not strength: the one who solely appears strong cannot do what he can, but he must suffer the actions to preserve that strangth. For Arya, these actions are failure.”
“What of you, then?” Arya asked Syrio, swatting away his sword with her hand, getting a splinter on her palm in the process.
“What of Syrio?” he asked, confused by the question.
“What was your position when your former employer visited the brothel?” she said, advancing with Needle before her.
“Syrio did what he was paid to do,” he said, circling her with a smile. “He had closed a contract of protection with his employer, and Syrio honoured it by standing guard. In Braavos, contracts are the law between the parties.”
“You said that the position of the harlot was the worst. It means that you took pity of her,” Arya burst forward, lunging at Syrio’s legs.
Syrio backstepped and brought the sword down towards her shoulders for to acquaint them with the wood. Arya dodged at the last moment and moved aside to put distance between herself and her teacher.
“Just so. What of it?” Syrio asked, feinting left and striking right.
“Why not help her?” Arya asked, parrying with the strong of her thin sword and manoeuvering in the bind. Needle was made out of metal, while Syrio’s sword out of wood; the former bit into the material of the latter, giving Arya a degree of control.
“Help her?” Syrio asked in turn. “What does a girl think Syrio ought to have done?”
What advantage Arya had gained in the bind, she lost it then. Her sword might have been made out of metal, but Syrio’s wooden sword was heavier, and the man was stronger than her. He took control of the bind, controlling her blade and pushing it progressively out of line from its target.
“Intervene. You could have asked your employer not to force enjoyment that she did not mean. Wasn’t she worthy of your help?” she broke the bind and jumped back before stepping back in to threaten another line of attack. “The whore was forced to be a person. If you wanted to help her but couldn’t, you were forced not to be one. Is, then, Syrio’s position as bad as the whore’s? Is Syrio not the whore through the looking glass?”
“A girl asks good question. If Arya Stark sees Syrio Forel as the whore, she is not completely wrong. After all, Syrio still accepts coins for training Arya here in Winterfell, when he could have very well stayed in the service of the Sealord of Braavos. Syrio must commend a girl on her questions.”
“Thank you, I guess.”
She lunged at her target, Syrio’s shoulder, which he had left open.
“What good would it have done?” he said flippantly.
And then, she was with her arse on the floor. She had not seen Syrio duck, but she did feel his shin sweep her off her feet.
“What good? You’d have helped her!” Arya protested, trying to get up, but she was stopped when she felt Syrio’s sword pressed to her throat.
“The whore is a whore, Arya Stark. Let us put it this way: say that Syrio had intervened. What then? What happens to all of our characters? The whore loses her pay for the service. And who knows if that coin was not necessary for her to feed herself or a parent or a child that night? And who, then, would ask for her service when they know she does not want to provide them? Does Arya want her to starve? The brothel client, now: he loses the worth of his coin, and if Syrio had intervened, even his life. Does Arya want a man dead? And Syrio’s former employer? For him, it would not matter: he would just fire Syrio and hire another whore. Or should Syrio kill him, too, him and all the patrons of the brothel? And now we come to Syrio. Who would hire him if he saw contracts as mere words in the wind? Nobody, and Arya Stark would not have Syrio to teach her. Or maybe she wants Syrio to have killed all the parties, changed name, become another, so as to never be traced back to this event.”
He removed the point of the wooden blade from her throat and smiled at her.
“Good work today, Arya Stark. Have a bath prepared for you, the lesson is over.”
He helped her up and dusted off some dirt from her jerkin. All the consequences Syrio had listed were too specific to be simple hypotheticals.
“You did intervene, didn’t you?” Arya asked under her breath. “I get it... you did it and regretted it... or you didn’t do it in the heat of the moment, but later... after thinking...”
Syrio smiled and put his finger to her lips.
He leant in and whispered in Arya’s ear, “As I said, the rich man was Syrio’s former employer. A girl ought to go, now. What do we say to the God of Death?”
“Not today,” Arya grinned.
Underneath her jerkin, she felt slick with sweat after the two hours of training with Syrio. Raising her arm, she sniffed under her armpit and wrinkled her nose. Arya looked around and saw Karlon Karstark, the son of Lord Rickard’s nephew Cregan, and Brandon Tallhart, heir of Torrhen’s Square, sparring under Ser Rodrik Cassel’s instruction. Both had been sent to Winterfell for the duration of the war by their relatives for their protection and as suitors for Arya, among others who had come for the same reason.
A score and six youth had arrived soon after Robb and Jon marched south, seventeen lads and nine girls, the latter of which now stood as ladies-in-waiting for Arya. The boys had been encouraged to come by Robb; as for the girls, the decision had not been taken by her, but for her by Maester Luwin. He’d explained to her that, as the castellan of Winterfell, especially a girl castellan, it was essential to foster good relations with the Houses through the women of those Houses. The other men on her council agreed, even if Arya found many of the girls incredibly boring. The boys would be much more entertaining, were it not that they pushed her to acquiesce to their marriage proposals with ridiculous promises. Robb had handed to her a boon on a golden tray in the form of being able to deny anyone who she did not like and ultimately choose for herself the final candidate, but, at the same time, he had not taken into account, or had not thought it overmuch that she’d be still annoyed by the presence of seventeen suitors. She found it extremely sweet, however, how the five-name-day-old Gawen Glover and the two seven-name-day-olds Eddard’ Ned’ Umber and Jason Ironsmith always snuck out of Winterfell into the farmfield of the smallfolk, where, at the edges of the farmlands, the white snowpiercer flowers grew. It was a game, for them, to see who could bring back the largest bundle to offer to her, and one could see a score of Umber or Tallhart guards all spread out across the fields outside Winter Town after the three lads. Arya amused them, and she rewarded the winner of their little competition with choosing his sitting place for a week at the supper table.
Among the girls, Arya liked Alys Karstark, Bran’s betrothed, who, whilst not interested in the same activities as Arya, greatly helped her whenever she had the need. At times, she had a thought that made her feel guilty: she wondered what it would have been like for Alys to have been her sister and not Sansa. Stupid Sansa, always so haughty, so infuriatingly ‘proper’; Alys was still polite, but she laughed at Arya’s japes and, when Arya told her of the warrior braids Ygritte had taught her and Sansa, she agreed to learn so as to make them for Arya when she was too tired after her training with Syrio.
Asha Bole and her brother Edric were a surprise to Arya. They were the sons of a Glover vassal, but they’d explained to her that all of House Glover’s sworn Houses were unlike other vassals in the North, except for the Clans of the High Mountains of the North and the Crannogmen of the Neck. As the Glovers had reigned as petty kings of the Wolfswood, and they’d been one of the last kings to bend the knee to House Stark, they preserved many of their structures untouched. Some among the Wolfswood Houses still knew how to read and speak the Old Tongue, a practice Arya knew they shared with the Clansmen and the Crannogmen. Outsiders oftentimes happened to name them ‘Clans of the Wolfswood’ due to their peculiar family structure, even if it was not the proper term. The cult of the Old Gods was already a very diverse cult, Arya knew as a practitioner herself as her father had taught her, where some people had different, at times even incompatible, beliefs regarding the nature of the Gods, and yet they all thought of themselves as honouring the same Gods and as belonging to the same cult; the ‘clans’ of the Wolfswood had an even stranger custom, not known in other variants: people from one clan could be taken into another clan not by marriage but simply with a declaration before a Heart Tree, both as children and as adults. Such custom, Arya was told, was called ‘to-qayeti-isde’ in the Old Tongue, translatable as ‘betaking’ in Common, while others called it ‘adoption’. Asha and Edric, and this was what brought the greatest surprise unto Arya, more so than their families’ structure, sparred regularly, even Asha, who was a girl.
Looking at Karlon Karstark and Brandon Tallhart sparring while she walked towards the entrance of the Main Keep, Arya saw the former unbutton his black surcoat with House Karstark’s white sunburst badge.
“Lad, you’ll hurt if a blow hit you,” Ser Rodrik told the boy of four and ten.
“Are these not blunts?” Karlon asked the night, beating his hand on the steel.
“They are, and they still hurt like bear fang if you get hit.”
“Bruises,” Karlon said, finishing the task he had unto which he had set himself to unbutton his garments, letting the surcoat fall onto the ground.
“If you wish for pain, have it, but take the wool off the dirt,” Ser Rodrik said. “If it dirties, another one, rather than you, will need to clean it.”
“There is no one who seeks pain for itself, only because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure,” Karlon quipped with a smirk while bending down to pick the surcoat and folding it onto a nearby fence by the armoury.
“Are you not cold?” Brandon Tallhart asked, seeing the other boy’s naked chest.
“My uncle’s lands are just south of Umber’s lands and the Wall. Karhold is on the Grey Cliffs, where the winds of the Shivering Sea howl and howl and howl. ’Tis no cold to speak of here! Perhaps, your Torrhen’s Square is too south, Tallhart?” Karlon boasted.
He was soon humbled when Brandon Tallhart whipped his blunt on Karlon’s side.
“Ow!”
“Strange,” Tallhart said with a smile. “I thought that if I hit you, you’d bleed smoke. I guess you have tough skin, Karstark.”
Arya laughed, but internally, she envied Karlon Karstark. She, too, was hot after two hours of training, but if she decided to strip in the middle of the yard, they would all take her as a fool, a madwoman, a barbarian, or a harlot. At this unfairness, her lips twitched downwards, and she felt anger stirring in her chest. She turned back towards her destination, remembering the lesson Syrio had just now finished giving her on wrath and thought, and she decided to swallow it all. After all, she thought, it was more complex than being simply hot: even if Arya could strip, as Winterfell was her home and she ruled it in Robb’s name, she herself would not appreciate if the boys and the guards stared at her chest. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, Arya said to herself, and she felt bitterness in her mouth.
Distracted as she was with her own thoughts, she was unable to avoid being beset by Robard Moss, another one of her suitors, who, for lack of will or things to do, had come to watch her train with Syrio. He was a boy a year her elder, but he had imposed on himself the ridiculous notion that he ought the world to walk with his fists on his hips, speaking with pomp and excessive altiloquence that did not fit not his age, nor his martial skill backed up.
“Princess Arya,” he bowed. “I could not but admire you train to defend your home, even if you belong to the domestic sex. I wish to tell you that, if you shall marry me, you’d never need to grasp a sword again.”
“Lord Robard, how interesting it is to have you here,” Arya said through her teeth, retelling a barb that Tyrion had taught her for insulting people without their knowledge. “Your presence fills a much-needed gap in my morning... and afternoons... and evenings,” she smiled.
“Princess Arya, you flatter me overmuch,” he said, the meaning of Arya’s words passing over him completely. “I am but a humble man who has his duties and shall fullfilt them. What I will is what is done, and I will for your safety, your highness.”
“Your wits equal your charms, my lord. You do have much to be humble about.”
The boy blushed, and she smirked. Arya knew that two were the possibilities: the first, unlikely according to her, was that Robard had understood the insult; the second, more likely, was that he was even more flattered.
Seeing him stumble over his words, Arya said, “Please, my lord, don’t be concerned if you need to leave for any reason. Nobody shall be offended. I do hope your day brings you as much joy as our fortuitous encounter brought me.”
Moss left with his distinctive gait, what for to do Arya did not know and wanted not to know. Theon Greyjoy was less annoying than Robard: at least, Theon was funny.
“What times! What customs!” a well-known voice sounded behind her. “When princesses are thieves. Will you give me back my lines?”
Tyrion stood on the steps of the entrance to the Main Keep and shook his head with a smile.
“What can I say, Lord Tyrion,” Arya turned to him. “It is known that a thief steals what they want, and being wanted is the condition for being valued. No thief steals what is worthless.”
“I should be flattered,” Tyrion said, walking beside her inside the Keep.
“You already are far too flattened,” she laughed openly, putting her hands on her belly.
“Dwarf japes?” he asked. “You are a scarce half-cubit taller than I am, Princess. There is not much for you to jest. I would name this almost... impish,” he also laughed.
“I guess I fell... short. It was a low-hanging fruit, I fear; at least, you could reach it, my lord. I am aware... after all, there is very... little to joke on the topic of dwarfs. What do you need, Tyrion?” Arya said the first part while struggling to maintain a serious expression as they entered the Great Keep.
“Lord Lyris Ryder has sent his weekly report,” he said. “The old Maester Luwin was to inform you, but, taking pity of his bones, I came in his stead.”
“What about it?”
“The usual: wildling-”
Arya interrupted him, “Free Folk, Tyrion.”
“Yes, yes, Free Folk movements, sea patrols on the Bay of Ice... We wondered if you wanted to be present at the discussion in two hours, Your Highness.”
“Nay,” Arya said. “Speak of it amongst yourselves. Mors Umber may as well speak for me. You’ll relay the tidings in the afternoon; I need to bathe and chaunge at the moment; otherwise, you’ll have sneeze all over Winterfell. And enough of the ‘Your Highness this’, ‘Your Highness that’. I already misliked being called ‘Lady Arya’, in the name of the Gods.”
“Be it as it may be, but ‘Princess’ is what you are now, Princess,” Tyrion said, stopping at the door of the Main Hall. “If you strive to help your brothers while they war in the South, never make people doubt that you embody King Robb’s authority at home through your name and title,” he said. Then, he smiled and saluted, “By the way, your dwarf japes are terrible. Have a nice day, Your Highness.”
Arya came upon her room, passing in front of all the others in the family wing. The Lord’s chambers, where her father and mother used to sleep together, filled her with the utmost sadness. When tidings had come of Joffrey ordering the execution of her father, she’d wept and shouted, and she’d ordered that none of the households get near it, that all ought to stay as it was. Arya had slept for the first seven nights after the message in her parents’ bed, wetting the feathered pillows with her tears, hoping that the smell would remain with her of the father who had passed away. When she was awake, it was indistinguishable from hers, as all the family used the same scented oils to clean themselves, but during sleep, when Nymeria would lie at her side, in her dreams Arya could take in every fragrance, including the lingering one of her father. Passing in front of it, she closed the door, and though of her mother, down south with Robb, Jon, and Sansa. She thought that the widow would never feel her husband’s strong arms protecting her sleeping form, and how cold she would be. An older member of the household had told Arya that her mother, before Sansa’s birth, had her own room, the hottest in Winterfell; he told her that she would probably move back into that room, so as to leave the Lord’s Chambers for Robb and his future wife. King’s Chambers, now, Arya thought. She wanted to kill them all, charge into an ill-conceived affray against all the Lannisters, all the Baratheons, and all their arse-lickers, spit-drinkers, servile flatterers, and base sycophants, even if it meant ending bloodlines and burining many keeps; she had written to Robb and Jon after the message had arrived, but they had commanded her to stay in Winterfell, wisely pointing out that she was only ten, that it was unreasonable to charge the enemy in their lands, that she’d be killed without second thought or made hostage, and her time was better spent to defend their home. And because she loved Jon and Robb, and because she knew they would lay winter’s vengeance on their enemies’ necks, she would obey.
Opposite the Lord’s Chambers, Robb and Jon’s chamber door was ajar.
“Hey!” Arya shouted, slamming the door open and seeing one of the members of the household inside, dusting the two beds. “King Robb, my brother, has ordered that no one is to enter this room.”
“Princess!” the woman started in surprise. “I did not know-”
“Now you do. Please, leave and inform whoever still is not aware.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the woman said, making to scurry away before Arya stopped her.
“Since you’re going dowstairs, prepare a tub with hot water in my chambers, if you may.”
Looking around the room, Arya wondered concerning the reason why Robb had forbidden anyone from entering. Curiosity came over her, overriding guilt. She checked in the gardrobe first, but she found only Robb’s and, interestingly, Jon’s clothes: breeches, some ugly pantaloons that Arya remembered were a gift for Robb’s eleventh name day from their Lord Grandsire, Hoster Tully, smallclothes, jerkins and surcoats. There were also two empty chamberpots. All in all, nothing too interesting.
She looked inside the two desks’ wickets, and she found only parchments, ink, and quills. She climbed on Robb’s bed and searched the wall-mounted shelf that Robb used as a graveyard for scrap writings, trinkets, or hides, trophies of the hunts, not processed by the furriers in Winter Town.
Shrugging, she jumped off the bed, unsatisfied by the clandestine perquisition and went to leave the room, but when she was about to close the door, she glanced under the bed Jon had used before leaving with Robb and the army and saw a glimmer. When she had climbed Robb’s bed, evidently, Arya’s movement had knocked that bed and Jon’s, making the cloth covering the object dislodge and reveal it.
Arya knelt to remove it. What had caught her attention was a roundish rock that looked like it had a bad case of scales, with a colour ranging from light grey to white and black, standing on top of an ironwood box with no hinges, keyholes, or openings, but hollow inside. Arya did not know the first thing about rocks, but this one was pretty, it was not the grey granite of Winterfell, nor was it the white sandstone of White Harbour, as she remembered the walls around the white city of the North from when her father had brought her there, nor was it the black-grey basalt of Moat Cailin that she had seen when she had gone and then returned from the little adventure in the South. It was definitely an interesting rock, Arya supposed, and she could not blame either Robb or Jon for wanting to keep it as a souvenir from whatever place they found it. Perhaps, she thought, it was Jon’s and he had found it on his short stay at the Wall. Thinking of it, Arya was glad Jon had not joined the Night's Watch.
She put back the rock and the box under the bed and covered them better with the heavy cloth before leaving the chambers.
Sansa’s chambers were closed, and so were Rickon’s. Reckoning that the unconscious Bran would not object to her sweaty self, and since his chambers were on the path to hers, Arya decided that it was as good a time as any to pay one of her frequent visits to her little brother. Finding the door open, she was not surprised to see another person inside.
“Good morning, Lady Alys,” Arya said, walking to Bran’s betrothed.
“Your Highness,” the only daughter of Rickard Karstark bowed.
Arya sat on the left side of the other girl, whose hair of dark brown looked so similar to hers.
“He’s warmer, today,” Arya commented after feeling with her palm her brother’s forehead. “He’s been getting warmer every day.”
“Do you reckon it is a good thing?”
“Maester Luwin said it is. He’s designed this… thing—I would not know how to name it—a brass container where to put some coals from the hearth. I assume it’s helping,” Arya shrugged, placing a kiss on Bran’s cheek. Normally, when another is ill, Maester Luwin had explained, it was not wise to kiss them, but seeing that no one who had cared and still cared for Bran came down with whatever he had, nobody worried over getting close to him.
Maester Luwin's thing was an ugly, very ugly container made of two halves of rough-hammered brass, a sturdy and thick but still flexible mesh in between of which the coals were supposed to be put, with many a small hole punched straight through both halves so as to allow the heat to escape.
“I guess it is helping,” Alys said. “His lips are less blue than when I first arrived here with my father.”
A noise distracted her, and Arya looked around. She had not seen Rickon there, playing with his red clay bricks together with his own betrothed, the young Pexrelle Cerwyn.
“Good morning, girls,” Arya said to her brother and his friend.
“Good morning, Arya!” Rickon said, coming to hug her.
“Did you awaken a long time ago?”
“Not at all!” Rickon grinned, not caring, in his five-year-old simplicity, that he’d just admitted to laziness.
“Not at all?” Arya asked, an eyebrow raised.
Rickon laughed, making the Lady Cerwyn laugh in turn.
“It’s already two and a half hour after dawn. You live the life of a shoat!” Arya said, making Alys laugh.
“I’m not a shit!” Rickon protested, wrecking Arya’s midrif.
“Ho! Hey! Stop hitting my bruises, Rickon! I said ‘shoat’: it means ‘piglet’!”
Rickon ceased his wrathful attack, looking comically pensive for a moment.
“A piglet, you say? I may be a shoal—”
“Shoat,” Arya corrected.
“Aye, aye. I may be a shoat, but I don’t stink like one!” he wagged his finger at Arya’s chest.
“I am sweaty, aye,” Arya admitted. “At least, I do something useful, shoat. Shouldn’t you be having lessons with Maester Luwin?”
“Ma-ma Luwin was busy in his tower,” Rickon turned around petulantly.
“Lying is bad, mama says,” the four-year-old Pexrelle whispered too loudly. Making Rickon attempt to shush her.
“Fine!” Rickon said in the tone that five-year-olds use when things do not go their way. “When someone does stuff near me, I oft awaken. I thought that if I played near Bran, he might awake and come play with us!”
“Oh, Prince Rickon, I am afraid it doesn’t work like that,” Alys smiled at him, but Arya could see the sadness in the lines around the eyes and the small dimples near her cheeks.
“But why do you sit around him, then, if not to wake him up? What for if not for his sake?” Rickon asked, confused, walking to Bran's bed like a prancer.
Arya thought about an answer, but she found only one that was not fake: the creators of the ring-a-round around the bed of a moribund stayed there only to hope for the waking or waiting for the wake.
“Go to your lessons, Rickon!” Arya commanded, instead of answering.
Rickon ignored her completely.
“Pex, let’s go wash Summer and Shaggydog! They stink real bad these days!”
The poor girl seemed to have received an early name day gift, babbling her way into a syllabising chant, “Shag-gy-dog! Shag-gy-dog!”
The two ran out of the room, and Arya could only shout “Lessons!”, but her demand was either ignored or drowned under the sounds of “Shag-gy-dog” that filled the corridor of the family wing.
After a moment of silence, needed for the girls to recompose after the children’s ruckus, Arya shook her head.
“Let them be, Your Highness,” Alys said. “They are but children.”
“Are we not?” Arya asked under her breath. “Ten name days I, four and ten you celebrated.”
“Aye, and yet we hold our homeland while our fathers and brothers are at war.”
Silence straddling the comfortable and unnerving filled the room. Arya imagined it pouring over the furniture all and the floor and themselves, flowing freely amidst the blocks of play discarded by Rickon and his friend; neither viscous nor inviscid, neither thick nor thin, Arya saw the silence stretch in the air and lounge like a maiden of Sansa’s songs, like the orange tabby cat that entered Bran’s chamber, jumping on the bed, climbing on top of Bran, and sitting there still with the exception of the tail.
Alys chuckled, blowing the silence away, at the sight of the cat kneading Bran’s belly. “Who is that?” she asked.
“You did not see him before? He’s a cat that my mother brought from Winter Town inside the castle to stay with Bran.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Foundling,” Arya said. “A simple name; it describes what he is.”
The cat seemed to agree when he meowed and loafed up on top of Bran.
“Are we dancing around a topic, cousin Alys?” Arya asked without warning, feeling the tension in the chambers.
“Do you wish to speak of something else?” Alys asked in turn, appearing to Arya almost confused.
“Why are you here, Alys?”
“I am your cousin, as you said, and Bran and I are betrothed.”
“Do you truly wish for this marriage?” Arya asked genuinely. “I mean, Bran may never wake up, and even if he wakes, he might as well never be able to walk again.”
“Before your kingly brother and my lord father spoke of this betrothal, there was word around that I may be promised to Lord Hornwood. The man is good and kind, but he ten years my elder. And if I stayed in Karhold, I’d dread being around my cousin Cregan and my uncle Arnolf; I am sure, if anything should happen to my father and brothers, that they’d marry me to Karlon.”
“Do you not like him?”
“Karlon is my second cousin, Your Higness—”
“‘Arya’, Alys. How many times do I have to ask you to call me ‘Arya’?”
“Karlon is my second cousin, Arya, and I do love him, but not like that. He has always been a good mate for play, and jovial, but his father is ambitious, and my uncle Arnolf is scary. In all honesty, Arya, I am glad to be marrying Bran. Whatever his state may be, I’d never a better match find for my House and for myself. I’d not have it another way. Tell me the truth of it, cousin Arya: what ail plagues my promised?”
Arya sighed, “I don’t know, my mother doesn’t know, my brothers don’t know… even the Maester is baffled. You’ve not been here very long, so you may not know. Have you seen we have a Free Folk with us here? Her name is Osha, she's the one who follows Rickon around during the afternoon.”
“A Free Folk? What is that?” Alys asked, confused.
“The correct name of the ones everybody insists on calling ‘wildlings’,” Arya huffed.
“You have a wildling here?”
“Free Folk,” Arya corrected her friend. “Anyway, she’d come with a group of her people and some Night’s Watch deserters. Bran got injured in the scuffle with them and fell in this condition soon after. We feared that the blade that cut him was poisoned, but Maester Luwin has excluded that possibility long ago.”
“Poisoned?”
“Aye, but the signs do not align with any known poison,” Arya clarified. “We have fed him broth with a dipping towel, but when we stopped a moon ago, Bran shows not change in weight. His body temperature is consistently lower thank the air around him, even under ten blankets. His heartbeat is regular but so slow and faint... Maester Luwin calls it ‘Long Sleep’, and even the Citadel has no idea. He likens it to what bears do in the winter. It’d be neat, if it weren’t my brother the one to have come down with it.”
The household girl that Arya had sent away a few moments ago knocked at the door.
“Your Highness, your bath is ready. I have plac’d the tub in your chambers.”
“Aye, thank you, I am coming in a bit,” Arya said through the door. “See you at noon, cousin?”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
As Arya opened the door, she heard a word, “snake”, in Bran’s voice.
“Did he…?” she asked Alys.
“Did he what, cousin?”
“Speak, did Bran speak?”
“No, Arya, he did not. Why, is it that you heard something?”
“Nay, nay,” Arya said. “Just asking if he spoke while you were tending to him, all this time,” she lied. “A mumble, or a groan.”
“Silent as a statue,” Alys replied with finality.
As Arya walked into the corridor, she doubted her senses. She was sure she’d heard the word “snake”. Was it that training tired her so? Or were her ear playing her for a fool and laugh? For want of a sign, Arya thought, a person could make it up. Or perhaps she’d just misheard the whining of the hinges of Bran’s door, or the creaking of the bed under his still weight.
All these thoughts accompanied her to her room, but they were dispelled by the presence inside.
“Deasy, what are you doing here?” Arya asked.
The girl sat daintly on a stool by the wooden tub, her hair balled up inside a woolen mesh in the Riverlander style—Arya had seen a similar one on her mother a few times—that kept them orderly, even if a few strands did stray outside of it.
“I saw you practice,” she smiled. “I knew you’d have a bath, and I thought you might need help washing your back.”
“Oh, Deasy, but—”
“No buts, yes?”
Arya sighed and stripped, discarding the sweaty clothes. She stepped into the lukewarm water and sat on the butt of the tub. She looked at her friend, scrutinising her expression as she picked up a jar of warmer water and a towel. For her age, she had dark circles under her eyes, and the same lines from the inner edge of the eye to the cheek as Arya’s father used to have after a day of handling the duties of the North.
“Are you not sleeping well?” Arya asked.
Deasy blushed and stammered.
“Nightmares?”
“I still see the Goat,” Deasy admitted. “I am there, powerless…”
“He will never come near anyone again,” Arya reassured her while she washed Arya’s back. “I skewered him with tens of holes; he now sleeps forever, rotting in a ditch, unknown, forgotten by all, him and his sold swords.”
“I know, but he… they...”
“He is dead—the Gods ought have smitten him sooner; I supplied that lack. He cannot touch you,” Arya said proudly. “The sooner you forget him, the sooner he will fade.”
“I am told there are worse men,” Deasy said, pouring the whole jug on Arya's hair and beginning to scrub. “I am told that it is better not to forget.”
“But I know for sure most men are better,” Arya rebuffed. “Fine, don't forget. Northmen like me say that the North remembers, but remembering does not mean you ought to live in fear. Tell you whae: join my lessons with Syrio, just like TomToo sometimes does, when his mother is not wroth with him.”