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Catelyn

We willwithin the hour"

Catelyn turned away from the rail and forced herself to smile "Your oarmen have done well by us, Captain Each one of theratitude"

Captain Moreo Turnitis favored her with a half bow "You are far too generous, Lady Stark The honor of carrying a great lady like yourself is all the reward they need"

"But they’ll take the silver anyway"

Moreo sue fluently, with only the slightest hint of a Tyroshi accent He’d been plying the narrow sea for thirty years, he’d told her, as oaralleys The Storalley of sixty oars

She had certainly been the fastest of the ships available in WhiteHarbor when Catelyn and Ser Rodrik Cassel had arrived after their headlong gallop downriver The Tyroshi were notorious for their avarice, and Ser Rodrik had argued for hiring a fishing sloop out of the Three Sisters, but Catelyn had insisted on the galley It was good that she had The winds had been against thealley’s oars they’d still be beating their way past the Fingers, instead of ski and journey’s end

So close, she thought Beneath the linen bandages, her fingers still throbbed where the dagger had bitten The pain was her scourge, Catelyn felt, lest she forget She could not bend the last two fingers on her left hand, and the others would never again be dexterous Yet that was a sh price to pay for Bran’s life

Ser Rodrik chose that h his forked green beard The Tyroshi loved bright colors, even in their facial hair "It is so fine to see you looking better"

"Yes," Ser Rodrik agreed "I haven’t wanted to die for almost two days now" He bowed to Catelyn "My lady"

He was looking better A shade thinner than he had been when they set out fro winds in the Bite and the roughness of the narrow sea had not agreed with hione over the side when the storonstone, yet so to a rope until three of Moreo’s men could rescue him and carry him safely below decks

"The captain was just telling e is aled a wry sreat white side whiskers; smaller somehow, less fierce, and ten years older Yet back on the Bite it had seemed prudent to submit to a crewman’s razor, after his whiskers had become hopelessly befouled for the third ti winds

"I will leave you to discuss your business," Captain Moreo said He bowed and took his leave of theonfly, her oars rising and falling in perfect ti shore "I have not been the most valiant of protectors"

Catelyn touched his arm "We are here, Ser Rodrik, and safely That is all that truly ers stiff and fuer was still at her side She found she had to touch it now and then, to reassure herself "Noe ’s master-at-arms, and pray that he can be trusted"

"Ser Aron Santagar is a vain man, but an honest one" Ser Rodrik’s hand went to his face to stroke his whiskers and discovered once again that they were gone He looked nonplussed "He o ashore we are at risk And there are those at court ill know you on sight"

Catelyn’s er," she h he was a boy no longer His father had died several years before, so he was Lord Baelish now, yet still they called hiiven hio at Riverrun His faers, and Petyr had been slight and short for his age

Ser Rodrik cleared his throat "Lord Baelish once, ah" His thought trailed off uncertainly in search of the polite word

Catelyn was past delicacy "He was ht of his for me weremore than brotherly When it was announced that I was to wed Brandon Stark, Petyr challenged for the right to my hand It was madness Brandon enty, Petyr scarcely fifteen I had to beg Brandon to spare Petyr’s life He let him off with a scar Afterward my father sent him away I have not seen him since" She lifted her face to the spray, as if the brisk wind could blow the memories away "He wrote to me at Riverrun after Brandon was killed, but I burned the letter unread By then I knew that Ned would marry me in his brother’s place"

Ser Rodrik’s fingers fuer sits on the sh," Catelyn said "He was always clever, even as a boy, but it is one thing to be clever and another to be wise I wonder what the years have done to hi out fro across the deck, giving orders, and all around the’s Landing slid into view atop its three high hills

Three hundred years ago, Catelyn knew, those heights had been covered with forest, and only a handful of fisherfolk had lived on the north shore of the Blackwater Rush where that deep, swift river flowed into the sea Then Aegon the Conqueror had sailed froonstone It was here that his arhest hill that he built his first crude redoubt of wood and earth

Now the city covered the shore as far as Catelyn could see; ranaries, brick storehouses and tiraveyards and brothels, all piled one on another She could hear the clamor of the fish s were broad roads lined with trees, wandering crookback streets, and alleys so narrow that two men could not walk abreast Visenya’s hill was crowned by the Great Sept of Baelor with its seven crystal towers Across the city on the hill of Rhaenys stood the blackened walls of the Dragonpit, its huge do into ruin, its bronze doors closed now for a century The Street of the Sisters ran between theht as an arrow The city walls rose in the distance, high and strong

A hundred quays lined the waterfront, and the harbor was croith ships Deepwater fishing boats and river runners came and went, ferryalleys unloaded goods from Braavos and Pentos and Lys Catelyn spied the queen’s ornate barge, tied up beside a fat-bellied whaler from the Port of Ibben, its hull black with tar, while upriver a dozen lean golden warships rested in their cribs, sails furled and cruel iron ra at the water

And above it all, frowning down froe druries, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls studded with archers’ nests, all fashioned of pale red stone Aegon the Conqueror had coor the Cruel had seen it completed Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, orker, and builder who had labored on it Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed

Yet now the banners that flew froolden, not black, and where the three-headed dragon had once breathed fire, now pranced the crowned stag of House Baratheon

A high- out froe ind The Stor steadily for shore

"My lady," Ser Rodrik said, "I have thought on how best to proceed while I lay abed YouSer Aron to you in soht as the galley drew near to a pier Moreo was shouting in the vulgar Valyrian of the Free Cities "You would be as much at risk as I would"

Ser Rodrik smiled "I think not I looked at nized myself My mother was the last person to see me without whiskers, and she is forty years dead I believe I ah, my lady"

Moreo bellowed a command As one, sixty oars lifted froalley slowed Another shout The oars slid back inside the hull As they thuainst the dock, Tyroshi sea up, all s, my lady, as you did coe Will you be needing assistance to carry your things to the castle?"

"We shall not be going to the castle Perhaps you can suggest an inn, someplace clean and comfortable and not too far froreen beard "Just so I know of several establishht suit your needs Yet first, if I may be so bold, there is the reed upon And of course the extra silver you were so kind as to pros, I believe it was"

"For the oarmen," Catelyn reminded hih perhaps I should hold it for them until we return to Tyrosh For the sake of their wives and children If you give them the silver here, ht’s pleasure"

"There are worse things to spend "

"A man must make his own choices," Catelyn said "They earned the silver How they spend it is no concern of mine"

"As you say,

Just to be sure, Catelyn paid the oar to each man, and a copper to the two men who carried their chests halfway up Visenya’s hill to the inn that Moreo had suggested It was a ra old place on Eel Alley The wo eye who looked them over suspiciously and bit the coin that Catelyn offered her to h, and Moreo swore that her fish steas the doms Best of all, she had no interest in their names

"I think it best if you stay away from the common room," Ser Rodrik said, after they had settled in "Even in a place like this, one never knoho sword under a dark cloak with a hood he could pull up over his head "I will be back before nightfall, with Ser Aron," he promised "Rest now, e had been long and fatiguing, and she was no longer as young as she had been Her s opened on the alley and rooftops, with a view of the Blackwater beyond She watched Ser Rodrik set off, striding briskly through the busy streets until he was lost in the crowds, then decided to take his advice The bedding was stuffed with straw instead of feathers, but she had no trouble falling asleep

She woke to a pounding on her door

Catelyn sat up sharply Outside the , the rooftops of King’s Landing were red in the light of the setting sun She had slept longer than she intended A fist haain, and a voice called out, "Open, in the na"

"A moment," she called out She wrapped herself in her cloak The dagger was on the bedside table She snatched it up before she unlatched the heavy wooden door