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A passing wagon had left a deep rut in the street The boy leapt over, but Arya never saw it She tripped and fell, face first, scraping her knee open on a stone and sers when her hands hit the hard-packed earth Needle tangled between her legs She sobbed as she struggled to her knees The thumb of her left hand was covered with blood When she sucked on it, she saw that half the thuone, ripped off in her fall Her hands throbbed, and her knee was all bloody too
"Make way!" someone shouted from the cross street "Make way for et out of the road before they ran her down, four guardsallop They wore checked cloaks, blue-and-burgundy Behind thes rode side by side on a pair of chestnut mares alike as peas in a pod Arya had seen them in the bailey a hundred times; the Redwyne twins, Ser Horas and Ser Hobber, hoe hair and square, freckled faces Sansa and Jeyne Poole used to call theht sight of them They did not look funny now
Everyone wasin the sa was all about The bells see Arya joined the stream of people Her thumb hurt so bad where the nail had broken that it was all she could do not to cry She bit her lip as she li to the excited voices around her
"--the King’s Hand, Lord Stark They’re carrying him up to Baelor’s Sept"
"I heard he was dead"
"Soon enough, soon enough Here, I gotsays they lop his head off"
"Past tiled to find a voice "He never--" she started, but she was only a child and they talked right over her
"Fool! They ain’t neither going to lop him Since when do they knick traitors on the steps of the Great Sept?"
"Well, they don’t ht I heard it was Stark killed old King Robert Slit his throat in the woods, and when they found him, he stood there cool as you please and said it was some old boar did for His Grace"
"Ah, that’s not true, it was his own brother did hiold antlers"
"You shut your lying , his lordship’s a fine true man"
By the time they reached the Street of the Sisters, they were packed in shoulder to shoulder Arya let the hu, up to the top of Visenya’s Hill The whiteexcitedly at each other and straining to get closer to the Great Sept of Baelor The bells were very loud here
Arya squirs of horses and clutching tight to her sword stick Fros and sto overhead She spotted a agon and thought to cliht be able to see, but others had the same idea The teamster cursed at them and drove therew frantic Forcing her way to the front of the crowd, she was shoved up against the stone of a plinth She looked up at Baelor the Blessed, the septon king Sliding her stick sword through her belt, Arya began to climb Her broken thumbnail left smears of blood on the painted ed herself in between the king’s feet
That hen she saw her father
Lord Eddard stood on the High Septon’s pulpit outside the doors of the sept, supported between two of the gold cloaks He was dressed in a rich grey velvet doublet with a white wolf sewn on the front in beads, and a grey wool cloak trimmed with fur, but he was thinner than Arya had ever seen hi so rey and rotten
The High Septon hie and ponderously fat, wearing long white robes and an iold and crystal that wreathed his head with rainbohenever he moved
Clustered around the doors of the sept, in front of the raised h lords Joffrey was pro them, his rais and roaring lions, a gold crown on his head His queen own slashed with crinized the Hound, wearing a snohite cloak over his dark grey aruard around hi the lords in soft slippers and a patterned daht the short ht be the one who had once fought a duel for Mother
And there in theirauburn hair washed and curled and silver bracelets on her wrists Arya scowled, wondering what her sister was doing here, why she looked so happy
A long line of gold-cloaked spearmen held back the crowd, commanded by a stout ree His cloak had the old
When the bell ceased to toll, a quiet slowly settled across the great plaza, and her father lifted his head and began to speak, his voice so thin and weak she could scarcely an to shout out, "What?" and "Louder!" The old armor stepped up behind Father and prodded him sharply You leave him alone! Arya wanted to shout, but she knew no one would listen She chewed her lip
Her father raised his voice and began again "I a," he saidacross the plaza, "and I coods and men"
"No," Arya whian to scream and shout Taunts and obscenities filled the air Sansa had hidden her face in her hands
Her father raised his voice still higher, straining to be heard "I betrayed the faith ofand the trust of my friend, Robert," he shouted "I swore to defend and protect his children, yet before his blood was cold, I plotted to depose and h Septon and Baelor the Beloved and the Seven bear witness to the truth of what I say: Joffrey Baratheon is the one true heir to the Iron Throne, and by the grace of all the gods, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Real out of the crowd Arya cried out as she saw her father hit The gold cloaks kept hiash across his forehead More stones followed One struck the guard to Father’s left Another went clanging off the breastplate of the knight in the black-and-gold aruard stepped in front of Joffrey and the queen, protecting them with their shields
Her hand slid beneath her cloak and found Needle in its sheath She tightened her fingers around the grip, squeezing as hard as she had ever squeezed anything Please, gods, keep him safe, she prayed Don’t let theh Septon knelt before Joffrey and his mother "As we sin, so do we suffer," he intoned, in a deep swelling voice much louder than Father’s "This ods and men, here in this holy place" Rainbows danced around his head as he lifted his hands in entreaty "The gods are just, yet Blessed Baelor taught us that they are also merciful What shall be done with this traitor, Your Grace?"
A thousand voices were screa Joffreystepped out frouard "My mother bids ed ht at Sansa then, and sods had heard her prayer, until Joffrey turned back to the crowd and said, "But they have the soft hearts of woo unpunished Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!"
The crowd roared, and Arya felt the statue of Baelor rock as they surged against it The High Septon clutched at the king’s cape, and Varys ca sohts h, tall and fleshless, a skeleton in iron ’s Justice Dimly, as if from far off, Arya heard her sister screa hysterically Ser Ilyn Payne cliled between Baelor’s feet and threw herself into the crowd, drawing Needle She landed on a round Immediately someone slammed into her back and she al and pushing, tra on the poor butcher Arya slashed at theh atop the pulpit, Ser Ilyn Payne gestured and the knight in black-and-gold gave a co Lord Eddard to the e
"Here, you!" an angry voice shouted at Arya, but she bowled past, shoving people aside, squir into anyone in her way A hand fu and she hacked at it, kicked at shins A wo to both sides, but it was no good, no good, there were too ain So
Ser Ilyn dreo-handed greatsword from the scabbard on his back As he lifted the blade above his head, sunlight see off an edge sharper than any razor Ice, she thought, he has Ice! Her tears strea her
And then a hand shot out of the press and closed round her ar from her hand Arya renched off her feet She would have fallen if he hadn’t held her up, as easy as if she were a doll A face pressed close to hers, long black hair and tangled beard and rotten teeth "Don’t look!" a thick voice snarled at her
"III" Arya sobbed
The old man shook her so hard her teeth rattled "Shut your mouth and close your eyes, boy" Dimly, as if fro sound, as if a million people had let out their breath at once The oldinto her arm, stiff as iron "Look at me Yes, that’s the way of it, at me" Sour wine perfumed his breath "Remember, boy?"
It was the sreasy hair, the patched, dusty black cloak that covered his twisted shoulders, the hard black eyes squinting at her And she remembered the black brother who had come to visit her father
"Know ht boy" He spat "They’re done here You’ll be co your ain, even harder "Shut, I said"
The plaza was beginning to empty The press dissolved around them as people drifted back to their lives But Arya’s life was gone Nu besideYoren, yes, his na Needle, until he handed the sword back to her "Hope you can use that, boy"
"I’m not--" she started
He shoved her into a doorway, thrust dirty fingers through her hair, and gave it a twist, yanking her head back "--not a smart boy, that what you mean to say?"
He had a knife in his other hand
As the blade flashed toward her face, Arya threw herself backward, kicking wildly, wrenching her head fro, she could feel her scalp tearing, and on her lips the salt taste of tears