2017年07月

 1398671747
Arya had screamed at him. She was still defiant then, more angry than scared.  He answered by grabbing the front of her tunic and yanking her within an inch of his burned face. “The next time you say that name I’ll beat you so bad you’ll wish I killed you.”  After that, he rolled her in his horse blanket every night when he went to sleep, and tied ropes around her top and bottom so she was bound up as tight as a babe in swaddling clothes.

 It has to be the Blackwater, Arya decided as she watched the rain lash the river. The Hound was Joffrey’s dog ; he was taking her back to the Red Keep, to hand to Joffrey and the queen. She wished that the sun would come out, so she could tell which way they were going. The more she looked at the moss on the trees the more confused she got. The Blackwater wasn’t so wide at King’s Landing, but that was before the rains.  “The fords will all be gone,” Sandor Clegane said, “and I wouldn’t care to try and swim over neither.”  There’s no way across, she thought. Lord Beric will catch us for sure. Clegane had pushed his big black stallion hard, ff pursuit, once even riding half a mile up the center of a swollen stream... but Arya still expected to see the outlaws every time she looked back. She had tried to help them by scratching her name on the trunks of trees when she went in the bushes to make water, but the fourth time she did it he caught her, and that was the end of that. It doesn’t matter, Arya told herself, Thoros will find me in his flames. Only he hadn’t. Not yet, anyway, and once they crossed the river...  “Harroway town shouldn’t be far,” the Hound said. “Where Lord Roote stables Old King Andahar’s two-headed water horse. Maybe we’ll ride across.”  Arya had never heard of Old King Andahar. She’d never seen a horse with two heads either, especially not one who could run on water , but she knew better than to ask. She held her tongue and sat stiff as the Hound turned the stallion’s head and trotted along the ridgeline, following the river downstream. At least the rain was at their backs this way. She’d had enough of it stinging her eyes half-blind and washing down her cheeks like she was crying. Wolves never cry, she reminded herself again.  It could not have been much past noon, but the sky was dark as dusk.

They had not seen the sun in more days than she could count. Arya was soaked to the bone, saddle-sore, sniffling, and achy. She had a fever too, and sometimes shivered uncontrollably, but when she’d told the Hound that she was sick he’d only snarled at her. “Wipe your nose and shut your mouth,” he told her. Half the time he slept in the saddle now, trusting his stallion to follow whatever rutted farm track or game trail they were on.

The horse was a heavy courser, almost as big as a destrier but much faster. Stranger, the Hound called him. Arya had tried to steal him once, when Clegane was taking a piss against a tree, thinking she could ride off before he could catch her. Stranger had almost bitten her face off. He was gentle as an old gelding with his master, but otherwise he had a temper as black as he was. She had never known a horse so quick to bite or kick.  They rode beside the river for hours, splashing across two muddy vassal streams before they reached the place that Sandor Clegane had spoken of. “Lord Harroway’s Town,” he said, and then, when he saw it, “Seven hells!” The town was drowned and desolate. The rising waters had overflowed the riverbanks reenex.

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“Some fool boy’s like to fall off and break his back.” There was a shout from above, and a clod of manure exploded on the ground a foot in front of them. Tyrion’s mare reared and almost threw him. “On second thoughts,” he said when he had the horse in hand, “let the poxy brats splatter on the cobbles like overripe melons.”  He was in a black mood, and urchins wanted to pelt him with dung. His marriage was a daily agony. Sansa Stark remained a maiden, and half the castle seemed to know it . When they had saddled up this morning, he’d heard two of the stableboys sniggering behind his back. He could almost imagine that the horses were sniggering as well. He’d risked his skin to avoid the bedding ritual, hoping to preserve the privacy of his bedchamber, but that hope had been dashed quick enough. Either Sansa had been stupid enough to confide in one of her bedmaids, every one of whom was a spy for Cersei, or Varys and his little birds were to blame.  What difference did it make? They were laughing at him all the same.

The only person in the Red Keep who didn’t seem to find his marriage a source of amusement was his lady wife.  Sansa’s misery was deepening every day. Tyrion would gladly have broken through her courtesy to give her what solace he might, but it was no good. No words would ever make him fair in her eyes. Or any less a Lannister. This was the wife they had given him, for all the rest of his life, and she hated him.  And their nights together in the great bed were another source of torment. He could no longer bear to sleep naked, as had been his custom. His wife was too well trained ever to say an unkind word , but the revulsion in her eyes whenever she looked on his body was more than he could bear. Tyrion had commanded Sansa to wear a sleeping shift as well. I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is.

I want to comfort her. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to come to me willingly, to bring me her joys and her sorrows and her lust. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. Yes, and I want to be tall as Jaime and as strong as Ser Gregor the Mountain too, for all the bloody good it does.  Unbidden, his thoughts went to Shae. Tyrion had not wanted her to hear the news from any lips but his own, so he had commanded Varys to bring her to him the night before his wedding. They met again in the eunuch’s chambers, and when Shae began to undo the laces of his jerkin, he’d caught her by the wrist and pushed her away. “Wait,” he said, “there is something you must hear. On the morrow I am to be wed...”  “... to Sansa Stark. I know.”  He was speechless for an instant. Even Sansa did not know, not then. “How could you know? Did Varys tell you?”  “Some page was telling Ser Tallad about it when I took Lollys to the sept .

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