Page 34 (2/2)

"Pride?" Catelyn snapped His ance, soance and avarice and lust for power"

"My brother is undoubtedly arrogant," Tyrion Lannister replied "My father is the soul of avarice, andbreath I, however, arinned

The drawbridge ca down before she could reply, and they heard the sound of oiled chains as the portcullis was drawn up Men-at-arht their way, and her uncle led theh Steward of the Vale and Keeper of the Gates of the Moon, aiting in the yard to greet the He was a massive, barrel-chested man, and his boas clumsy

Catelyn dismounted to stand before him "Lord Nestor," she said She knew the man only by reputation; Bronze Yohn’s cousin, from a lesser branch of House Royce, yet still a for journey I would beg the hospitality of your roof tonight, if I ht"

"My roof is yours, ruffly, "but your sister the Lady Lysa has sent doord from the Eyrie She wishes to see you at once The rest of your party will be housed here and sent up at first light"

Her uncle swung off his horse "What madness is this?" he said bluntly Brynden Tully had never been a ht ascent, with the moon not even full? Even Lysa should know that’s an invitation to a broken neck"

"The irl of seventeen or eighteen years stepped up beside Lord Nestor Her dark hair was cropped short and straight around her head, and she wore riding leathers and a light shirt of silvered ringracefully than her lord "I promise you, my lady, no harm will come to you It would be my honor to take you up I’ve made the dark clioat"

She sounded so cocky that Catelyn had to smile "Do you have a name, child?"

"Mya Stone, if it please you, irl said

It did not please her; it was an effort for Catelyn to keep the smile on her face Stone was a bastard’s naarden; in each of the Seven Kingdoms, custom had fashioned a surname for children born with no nairl, but suddenly she could not help but think of Ned’s bastard on the Wall, and the thought led to find words for a reply

Lord Nestor filled the silence "Mya’s a clever girl, and if she vows she will bring you safely to the Lady Lysa, I believe her She has not failed me yet"

"Then I put myself in your hands, Mya Stone," Catelyn said "Lord Nestor, I charge you to keep a close guard onthe prisoner a cup of wine and a nicely crisped capon, before he dies of hunger," Lannister said "A girl would be pleasant as well, but I suppose that’s too hed aloud

Lord Nestor ignored the banter "As you say, my lady, so it will be done" Only then did he look at the dwarf "See our lord of Lannister to a tower cell, and bring him meat and mead"

Catelyn took her leave of her uncle and the others as Tyrion Lannister was led off, then followed the bastard girl through the castle Twoin the upper bailey, saddled and ready Mya helped her uardsate Beyond was dense forest of pine and spruce, and the mountain like a black wall, but the steps were there, chiseled deep into the rock, ascending into the sky "Some people find it easier if they close their eyes," Mya said as she led the htened or dizzy, soht They don’t like that"

"I was born a Tully and wed to a Stark," Catelyn said "I do not frighten easily Do you plan to light a torch?" The steps were black as pitch

The girl ht like this, the h Mychel says I have the eyes of the owl" She ed her mule up the first step Catelyn’s animal followed of its own accord

"You mentioned Mychel before," Catelyn said The mules set the pace, slow but steady She was perfectly content with that

"Mychel’s my love," Mya explained "Mychel Redfort He’s squire to Ser Lyn Corbray We’re to wed as soon as he becoht, next year or the year after"

She sounded so like Sansa, so happy and innocent with her dreaed with sadness The Redforts were an old name in the Vale, she kneith the blood of the First Men in their veins His love she ht be, but no Redfort would ever wed a bastard His fae a more suitable match for hihter of soreater house outside the Vale If Mychel Redfort laid with this girl at all, it would be on the wrong side of the sheet

The ascent was easier than Catelyn had dared hope The trees pressed close, leaning over the path to reen roof that shut out even theblack tunnel But the mules were surefooted and tireless, and Mya Stone did indeed see their way back and forth across the face of the mountain as the steps twisted and turned A thick layer of fallen needles carpeted the path, so the shoes of their mules made only the softest sound on the rock The quiet soothed her, and the gentle rockingshe was fighting sleep

Perhaps she did doze for abefore the Iron spikes were set along the tops of formidable stone walls, and two fat round towers overtopped the keep The gate swung open at Mya’s shout Inside, the portly knight who coreeted Mya by name and offered them skewers of charred meat and onions still hot frory she was She ate standing in the yard, as stablehands moved their saddles to fresh mules The hot juices ran down her chin and dripped onto her cloak, but she was too famished to care

Then it was up onto a new ht The second part of the ascent seemed more treacherous to Catelyn The trail was steeper, the steps more worn, and here and there littered with pebbles and broken stone Mya had to dismount a half-dozen times to move fallen rocks fro up here," she said Catelyn was forced to agree She could feel the altitude more now The trees were sparser up here, and the wind blewand pushed her hair into her eyes From time to time the steps doubled back on themselves, and she could see Stone below thehter than candles

Snoas sle fortified tower and a timber keep and stable hidden behind a loall of unainst the Giant’s Lance in such a way as to command the entire stone stair above the loaycastle An eneht his way from Stone step by step, while rocks and arrows rained down froht with a pockmarked face, offered bread and cheese and the chance to warht to keep going, my lady," she said "If it please you" Catelyn nodded

Again they were given fresh mules Hers hite Mya sood one, my lady Sure of foot, even on ice, but you need to be careful He’ll kick if he doesn’t like you"

The white ods There was no ice either, and she was grateful for that as well "My o, this here the snow began," Mya told her "It was alhite above here, and the ice neversnow this far down the mountain, but maybe it was that way once, in the olden ti to reirl had lived half her life in su, child, she wanted to tell her The words were on her lips; she al a Stark at last

Above Snow, the as a living thing, howling around the as if to lure thehter up here, so close that she could ale in the clear black sky As they climbed, Catelyn found it was better to look up than down The steps were cracked and broken from centuries of freeze and thaw and the tread of countless hts put her heart in her throat When they cah saddle between two spires of rock, Mya dismounted "It’s best to lead the mules over," she said "The wind can be a little scary here, my lady"

Catelyn climbed stiffly fro and close to three feet wide, but with a precipitous drop to either side She could hear the wind shrieking Mya stepped lightly out, hera bailey It was her turn Yet no sooner had she taken her first step than fear caught Catelyn in its jaws She could feel the eulfs of air that yawned around her She stopped, tre, afraid to move The wind screa to pull her over the edge Catelyn edged her foot backward, the most timid of steps, but theto die here, she thought She could feel cold sweat trickling down her back

"Lady Stark," Mya called across the gulf The girl sounded a thousand leagues away "Are you well?"

Catelyn Tully Stark shat remained of her pride "II cannot do this, child," she called out

"Yes you can," the bastard girl said "I know you can Look hoide the path is"

"I don’t want to look" The world see around her,like a child’s top Catelyn closed her eyes to steady her ragged breathing

"I’ll come back for you," Mya said "Don’tCatelyn was about to do She listened to the skirling of the wind and the scuffling sound of leather on stone Then Mya was there, taking her gently by the aro of the rope now, Whitey will take care of hiood, my lady I’ll lead you over, it’s easy, you’ll see Give me a step now That’s it, move your foot, just slide it forward See Now another Easy You could run across Another one, go on Yes" And so, foot by foot, step by step, the bastard girl led Catelyn across, blind and tre, while the white mule followed placidly behind them

The waycastle called Sky was no h, crescent-shaped wall of unainst the side of the mountain, but even the topless towers of Valyria could not have looked more beautiful to Catelyn Stark Here at last the snon began; Sky’s weathered stones were ri fro in the east as Mya Stone hallooed for the guards, and the gates opened before thereat tumble of boulders and stones of all sizes No doubt it would be the easiest thing in the world to begin an avalanche from here A mouth yawned in the rock face in front of them "The stables and barracks are in there," Mya said "The last part is inside the mountain It can be a little dark, but at least you’re out of the wind This is as far as the o Past here, well, it’s a sort of chimney, more like a stone ladder than proper steps, but it’s not too bad Another hour and we’ll be there"

Catelyn looked up Directly overhead, pale in the dawn light, she could see the foundations of the Eyrie It could not be more than six hundred feet above them From below it looked like a small white honeycomb She remembered what her uncle had said of baskets and winches "The Lannisters may have their pride," she told Mya, "but the Tullys are born with better sense I have ridden all day and the best part of a night Tell them to lower a basket I shall ride with the turnips"

The sun ell above the mountains by the time Catelyn Stark finally reached the Eyrie A stocky, silver-haired man in a sky-blue cloak and hammered moon-and-falcon breastplate helped her froen, captain of Jon Arryn’s household guard Beside him stood Maester Colemon, thin and nervous, with too little hair and too much neck "Lady Stark," Ser Vardis said, "the pleasure is as great as it is unanticipated" Maester Colereement "Indeed it is, my lady, indeed it is I have sent word to your sister She left orders to be awakened the instant you arrived"

"I hope she had a good night’s rest," Catelyn said with a certain bite in her tone that seeo unnoticed

The men escorted her from the winch room up a spiral stair The Eyrie was a sreat houses; seven slender white towers bunched as tightly as arrows in a quiver on a shoulder of the great mountain It had no need of stables nor se as Winterfell’s, and its towers could house five hundred ely deserted to Catelyn as she passed through it, its pale stone halls echoing and e alone in her solar, still clad in her bed robes Her long auburn hair tumbled unbound across bare white shoulders and down her back A les, but when Catelyn entered, her sister rose to her feet, sood it is to see you My sweet sister" She ran across the cha it has been," Lysa "

It had been five years, in truth; five cruel years, for Lysa They had taken their toll Her sister o years the younger, yet she looked older now Shorter than Catelyn, Lysa had grown thick of body, pale and puffy of face She had the blue eyes of the Tullys, but hers were pale and watery, never still Her small mouth had turned petulant As Catelyn held her, she reirl who’d waited beside her that day in the sept at Riverrun How lovely and full of hope she had been All that rereat fall of thick auburn hair that cascaded to her waist

"You look well," Catelyn lied, "buttired"

Her sister broke the embrace "Tired Yes Oh, yes" She seemed to notice the others then; her maid, Maester Colemon, Ser Vardis "Leave us," she told them "I wish to speak to my sister alone" She held Catelyn’s hand as they withdrew

and dropped it the instant the door closed Catelyn saw her face change It was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud "Have you taken leave of your senses?" Lysa snapped at her "To bring him here, without a word of per us into your quarrels with the Lannisters"

"My quarrels?" Catelyn could scarce believe what she was hearing A great fire burned in the hearth, but there was no trace of warmth in Lysa’s voice "They were your quarrels first, sister It was you who sent me that cursed letter, you rote that the Lannisters had murdered your husband"

"To warn you, so you could stay away froht them! Gods, Cat, do you knohat you’ve done?"

"Mother?" a s around her Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, stood in the doorway, clutching a ragged cloth doll and looking at thee eyes He was a painfully thin child, se and sickly all his days, and fro sickness, the maesters called it "I heard voices"

S Still, her sister looked daggers at her "This is your aunt Catelyn, baby My sister, Lady Stark Do you relanced at her blankly "I think so," he said, blinking, though he had been less than a year old the last time Catelyn had seen him

Lysa seated herself near the fire and said, "Cohtened his bedclothes and fussed with his fine brown hair "Isn’t he beautiful? And strong too, don’t you believe the things you hear Jon knew The seed is strong, he told rabbedHis seed He wanted everyone to knohat a good strong boyto be"

"Lysa," Catelyn said, "if you’re right about the Lannisters, all the more reason we must act quickly We--"

"Not in front of the baby," Lysa said "He has a delicate temper, don’t you, sweet one?"

"The boy is Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale," Catelyn reminded her, "and these are no times for delicacy Ned thinks it may come to war"

"Quiet!" Lysa snapped at her "You’re scaring the boy" Little Robert took a quick peek over his shoulder at Catelyn and began to treainst his mother "Don’t be afraid,will hurt you" She opened her robe and drew out a pale, heavy breast, tipped with red The boy grabbed for it eagerly, buried his face against her chest, and began to suck Lysa stroked his hair

Catelyn was at a loss for words Jon Arryn’s son, she thought incredulously She ree of this boy and five times as fierce Small wonder the lords of the Vale were restive For the first ti had tried to take the child away from his mother to foster with the Lannisters

"We’re safe here," Lysa was saying Whether to her or to the boy, Catelyn was not sure

"Don’t be a fool," Catelyn said, the anger rising in her "No one is safe If you think hiding here will et you, you are sadly mistaken"

Lysa covered her boy’s ear with her hand "Even if they could bring an arh the nable You saw for yourself No enemy could ever reach us up here"

Catelyn wanted to slap her Uncle Brynden had tried to warn her, she realized "No castle is inable"

"This one is," Lysa insisted "Everyone says so The only thing is, what aht me?"

"Is he a bad man?" the Lord of the Eyrie asked, hisfrom his mouth, the nipple wet and red

"A very bad man," Lysa told him as she covered herself, "but Mother won’t let him harm erly

Lysa stroked her son’s hair "Perhaps ill," she murmured "Perhaps that is just ill do"