A Clash of Kings (102 page)

“Well, I’m no great warrior like you, brother,” She quaffed half a horn of ale and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I saw the heads above your gates. Tell me true, which one gave you the fiercest fight, the cripple or the babe?”

Theon could feel the blood rushing to his face. He took no joy from those heads, no more than he had in displaying the headless bodies of the children before the castle. Old Nan stood with her soft toothless mouth opening and closing soundlessly, and Farlen threw himself at Theon, snarling like one of his hounds. Urzen and Cadwyl had to beat him senseless with the butts of their spears.
How did I come to this?
he remembered thinking as he stood over the fly-speckled bodies.

Only Maester Luwin had the stomach to come near. Stone-faced, the small grey man had begged leave to sew the boys’ heads back onto their shoulders, so they might be laid in the crypts below with the other Stark dead.

“No,” Theon had told him. “Not the crypts.”

“But why, my lord? Surely they cannot harm you now. It is where they belong. All the bones of the Starks—”

“I said
no
.” He needed the heads for the wall, but he had burned the headless bodies that very day, in all their finery. Afterward he had knelt amongst the bones and ashes to retrieve a slag of melted silver and cracked jet, all that remained of the wolf’s-head brooch that had once been Bran’s. He had it still.

“I treated Bran and Rickon generously,” he told his sister. “They brought their fate on themselves.”

“As do we all, little brother.”

His patience was at an end. “How do you expect me to hold Winterfell if you bring me only twenty men?”

“Ten,” Asha corrected. “The others return with me. You wouldn’t want your own sweet sister to brave the dangers of the wood without an escort, would you? There are direwolves prowling the dark.” She uncoiled 1from the great stone seat and rose to her feet. âœome, let us go somewhere we can speak more privily.â/p>

She was right, he knew, though it galled him that she would make that decision.
I should never have come to the hall
, he realized belatedly.
I should have summoned her to me
.

It was too late for that now, however. Theon had no choice but to lead Asha to Ned Starkâ™ solar. There, before the ashes of a dead fire, he blurted, âœagmerâ™ lost the fight at Torrhenâ™ Square─

âœhe old castellan broke his shield wall, yes,âAsha said calmly. âœhat did you expect? This Ser Rodrik knows the land intimately, as the Cleftjaw does not, and many of the northmen were mounted. The ironborn lack the discipline to stand a charge of armored horse. Dagmer lives, be grateful for that much. Heâ™ leading the survivors back toward the Stony Shore.â/p>

She knows more than I do
, Theon realized. That only made him angrier. âœhe victory has given Leobald Tallhart the courage to come out from behind his walls and join Ser Rodrik. And Iâ™e had reports that Lord Manderly has sent a dozen barges upriver packed with knights, warhorses, and siege engines. The Umbers are gathering beyond the Last River as well. Iâ™l have an
army
at my gates before the moon turns, and you bring me only
ten men
?â/p>

✠need not have brought you any.â/p>

✠commanded you─

âœi>Father commanded me to take Deepwood Motte,âshe snapped. âœe said nothing of me having to rescue my little brother.â/p>

âœugger Deepwood,âhe said. âœtâ™ a wooden pisspot on a hill. Winterfell is the heart of the land, but how am I to hold it without a garrison?â/p>

âœou might have thought of that before you took it. Oh, it was cleverly done, Iâ™l grant you. If only youâ™ had the good sense to raze the castle and carry the two little princelings back to Pyke as hostages, you might have won the war in a stroke.â/p>

âœouâ™ like that, wouldnâ™ you? To see my prize reduced to ruins and ashes.â/p>

âœour prize will be the doom of you. Krakens rise from the
sea
, Theon, or did you forget that during your years among the wolves? Our strength is in our longships. My wooden pisspot sits close enough to the sea for supplies and fresh men to reach me whenever they are needful. But Winterfell is hundreds of leagues inland, ringed by woods, hills, and hostile holdfasts and castles. And every man in a thousand leagues is your enemy now, make no mistake. You made certain of that when you mounted those heads on your gatehouse.âAsha shook her head. âœow could you be such a bloody fool?
Children
Â.Â.Â.Ââ/p>

âœi>They defied me!âhe shouted in her face. âœnd it was blood for blood besides, two sons of Eddard Stark to pay for Rodrik and Maron.âThe words tumbled out heedlessly, but Theon knew at once that his father would approve. âœâ™e laid my brothersâ™ghosts to rest.â/p>

âœi>Our brothers,âAsha reminded him, with a half smile that suggested she took his talk of vengeance well salted. âœid you bring their ghosts from Pyke, brother? And here I thought they haunted only Father.â/p>

âœhen has a maid ever understood a manâ™ need for revenge?âEven if his father did not appreciate the gift of Winterfell, he
must
approve of Theon avenging his brothers!

Asha snorted back a laugh. â€This Ser Rodrik may well feel the same manly need, did you think of that? You are blood of my blood, Theon, whatever else you may be. For the sake of the mother who bore us both, return to Deepwood Motte with me. Put Winterfell to the torch and fall back while you still can.â/p>

âœo.âTheon adjusted his crown. ✠took this castle and I mean to hold it.â/p>

His sister looked at him a long time. âœhen hold it you shall,âshe said, âœor the rest of your life.âShe sighed. ✠say it tastes like folly, but what would a shy maid know of such things?âAt the door she gave him one last mocking smile. âœou ought to know, thatâ™ the ugliest crown Iâ™e ever laid eyes on. Did you make it yourself?â/p>

She left him fuming, and lingered no longer than was needful to feed and water her horses. Half the men sheâ™ brought returned with her as threatened, riding out the same Hunterâ™ Gate that Bran and Rickon had used for their escape.

Theon watched them go from atop the wall. As his sister vanished into the mists of the wolfswood he found himself wondering why he had not listened and gone with her.

âœone, has she?âReek was at his elbow.

Theon had not heard him approach, nor smelled him either. He could not think of anyone he wanted to see less. It made him uneasy to see the man walking around breathing, with what he knew.
I should have had him killed after he did the others
, he reflected, but the notion made him nervous. Unlikely as it seemed, Reek could read and write, and he was possessed of enough base cunning to have hidden an account of what theyâ™ done.

âœâ™ord prince, if youâ™l pardon me saying, itâ™ not right for her to abandon you. And ten men, that wonâ™ be near enough.â/p>

✠am well aware of that,âTheon said.
So was Asha
.

âœell, might be I could help you,âsaid Reek. âœive me a horse and bag oâ™coin, and I could find you some good fellows.â/p>

Theon narrowed his eyes. âœow many?â/p>

✠hundred, might be. Two hundred. Maybe more.âHe smiled, his pale eyes glinting. ✠was born up north here. I know many a man, and many a man knows Reek.â/p>

Two hundred men were not an army, but you didnâ™ need thousands to hold a castle as strong as Winterfell. So long as they could learn which end of a spear did the killing, they might make all the difference. âœo as you say and youâ™l not find me ungrateful. You can name your own reward.â/p>

âœell, mâ™ord, I havenâ™ had no woman since I was with Lord Ramsay,âReek said. âœâ™e had my eye on that Palla, and I hear sheâ™ already been had, soÂ.Â.Â.Ââ/p>

He had gone too far with Reek to turn back now. âœwo hundred men and sheâ™ yours. But a man less and you can go back to fucking pigs.â/p>

Reek was gone before the sun went down, carrying a bag of Stark silver and the last of Theonâ™ hopes.
Like as not, Iâ™l never see the wretch again
, he thought bitterly, but even so the chance had to be taken.

That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine timeÂ.Â.Â.Âuntil he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead.

King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life.

But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

Theon woke with a scream, startling Wex so badly that the boy ran naked from the room. When his guards burst in with drawn swords, he ordered them to bring him the maester. By the time Luwin arrived rumpled and sleepy, a cup of wine had steadied Theon’s hands, and he was feeling ashamed of his panic. “A dream,” he muttered, “that was all it was. It meant nothing.”

“Nothing,” Luwin agreed solemnly. He left a sleeping draught, but Theon poured it down the privy shaft the moment he was gone. Luwin was a man as well as a maester, and the man had no love for him.
He wants me to sleep, yes
. . .
to sleep and never wake. He’d like that as much as Asha would
.

He sent for Kyra, kicked shut the door, climbed on top of her, and fucked the wench with a fury he’d never known was in him, By the time he finished, she was sobbing, her neck and breasts covered with bruises and bite marks. Theon shoved her from the bed and threw her a blanket. “Get out.”

Yet even then, he could not sleep.

Come dawn, he dressed and went outside, to walk along the outer walls. A brisk autumn wind was swirling through the battlements. It reddened his cheeks and stung his eyes. He watched the forest go from grey to green below him as light filtered through the silent trees. On his left he could see tower tops above the inner wall, their roofs gilded by the rising sun. The red leaves of the weirwood were a blaze of flame among the green.
Ned Stark’s tree
, he thought,
and Stark’s wood, Stark’s castle, Stark’s sword, Stark’s gods. This is their place, not mine. I am a Greyjoy of Pyke, born to paint a kraken on my shield and sail the great salt sea. I should have gone with Asha
.

On their iron spikes atop the gatehouse, the heads waited.

Theon gazed at them silently while the wind tugged on his cloak with small ghostly hands. The miller’s boys had been of an age with Bran and Rickon, alike in size and coloring, and once Reek had flayed the s1kin from their faces and dipped their heads in tar, it was easy to see familiar features in those misshapen lumps of rotting flesh. People were such fools.
If we’d said they were rams’ heads, they would have seen horns
.

Chapter Fifty Seven
Sansa

They had been singing in the sept all morning, since the first report of enemy sails had reached the castle. The sound of their voices mingled with the whicker of horses, the clank of steel, and the groaning hinges of the great bronze gates to make a strange and fearful music.
In the sept they sing for the Mother’s mercy but on the walls it’s the Warrior they pray to, and all in silence
. She remembered how Septa Mordane used to tell them that the Warrior and the Mother were only two faces of the same great god.
But if there is only one, whose prayers will be heard?

Ser Meryn Trant held the blood bay for Joffrey to mount. Boy and horse alike wore gilded mail and enameled crimson plate, with matching golden lions on their heads. The pale sunlight flashed off the golds and reds every time Joff moved.
Bright, shining, and empty
, Sansa thought.

The Imp was mounted on a red stallion, armored more plainly than the king in battle gear that made him look like a little boy dressed up in his father’s clothes. But there was nothing childish about the battle-axe slung below his shield. Ser Mandon Moore rode at his side, white steel icy bright. When Tyrion saw her he turned his horse her way. “Lady Sansa,” he called from the saddle, “surely my sister has asked you to join the other highborn ladies in Maegor’s?”

“She has, my lord, but King Joffrey sent for me to see him off. I mean to visit the sept as well, to pray.”

“I won’t ask for whom.” His mouth twisted oddly; if that was a smile, it was the queerest she had ever seen. “This day may change all. For you as well as for House Lannister. I ought to have sent you off with Tommen, now that I think on it. Still, you should be safe enough in Maegor’s, so long as—”

“
Sansa!
” The boyish shout rang across the yard; Joffrey had seen her. “Sansa, here!”