“Aye, m’lord. Thank you, m’lord.” She covered her mouth when she spoke, to hide her broken teeth.

“Do you want her?” Jaime asked Peck, when she was gone.

The squire turned beet red.

“If she’ll have you, take her. She’ll teach you a few things you’ll find useful on your wedding night, I don’t doubt, and you’re not like to get a bastard by her.” Pia had spread her legs for half his father’s army and never quickened; most like the girl was barren. “If you bed her, though, be kind to her.”

“Kind, my lord? How. how would I.?”

“Sweet words. Gentle touches. You don’t want to wed her, but so long as you’re abed treat her as you would your bride.”

The lad nodded. “My lord, I. where should I take her? There’s never a place to. to. ”

“. to be alone?” Jaime grinned. “We’ll be at supper several hours. The straw looks lumpy, but it should serve.”

Peck’s eyes grew wide. “His lordship’s bed?”

“You’ll feel a lord yourself when you’re done, if Pia knows her business.” And someone ought to make some use of that miserable straw mattress.

When he descended for the feast that night, Jaime Lannister wore a doublet of red velvet slashed with cloth-of-gold, and a golden chain studded with black diamonds. He had strapped on his golden hand as well, polished to a fine bright sheen. This was no fit place to wear his whites. His duty awaited him at Riverrun; a darker need had brought him here.

Darry’s great hall was great only by courtesy. Trestle tables crowded it from wall to wall, and the ceiling rafters were black with smoke. Jaime had been seated on the dais, to the right of Lancel’s empty chair. “Will my cousin not be joining us for supper?” he asked as he sat down.

“My lord prefers to fast,” said Lancel’s wife, the Lady Amerei. “He’s sick with grief for the poor High Septon.” She was a long-legged, full-breasted, strapping girl of some eight-and-ten years; a healthy wench to look at her, though her pinched, chinless face reminded Jaime of his late and unlamented cousin Cleos, who had always looked somewhat like a weasel.

Fasting? He is an even bigger fool than I suspected. His cousin should be busy fathering a little weasel-faced heir on his widow instead of starving himself to death. He wondered what Ser Kevan might have had to say about his son’s new fervor. Could that be the reason for his uncle’s abrupt departure?

Over bowls of bean-and-bacon soup Lady Amerei told Jaime how her first husband had been slain by Ser Gregor Clegane when the Freys were still fighting for Robb Stark. “I begged him not to go, but my Pate was oh so very brave, and swore he was the man to slay that monster. He wanted to make a great name for himself.”

We all do. “When I was a squire I told myself I’d be the man to slay the Smiling Knight.”

“The Smiling Knight?” She sounded lost. “Who was that?”

The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad.

“An outlaw, long dead. No one who need concern your ladyship.”

Amerei’s lip trembled. Tears rolled from her brown eyes.

“You must forgive my daughter,” said an older woman. Lady Amerei had brought a score of Freys to Darry with her; a sister, an uncle, a half uncle, various cousins. and her mother, who had been born a Darry. “She still grieves for her father.”

“Outlaws killed him,” sobbed Lady Amerei. “Father had only gone out to ransom Petyr Pimple. He brought them the gold they asked for, but they hung him anyway.”

“Hanged, Ami. Your father was not a tapestry.” Lady Mariya turned back to Jaime. “I believe you knew him, ser.”

“We were squires together once, at Crakehall.” He would not go so far as to claim they had been friends. When Jaime had arrived, Merrett Frey had been the castle bully, lording it over all the younger boys. Then he tried to bully me. “He was. very strong.” It was the only praise that came to mind. Merrett had been slow and clumsy and stupid, but he was strong.

“You fought against the Kingswood Brotherhood together,” sniffed Lady Amerei. “Father used to tell me stories.”

Father used to boast and lie, you mean. “We did.” Frey’s chief contributions to the fight had consisted of contracting the pox from a camp follower and getting himself captured by the White Fawn. The outlaw queen burned her sigil into his arse before ransoming him back to Sumner Crakehall. Merrett had not been able to sit down for a fortnight, though Jaime doubted that the red-hot iron was half so nasty as the kettles of shit his fellow squires made him eat once he was returned. Boys are the cruelest creatures on the earth. He slipped his golden hand around his wine cup and raised it up. “To Merrett’s memory,” he said. It was easier to drink to the man than to talk of him.

After the toast Lady Amerei stopped weeping and the table talk turned to wolves, of the four-footed kind. Ser Danwell Frey claimed there were more of them about than even his grandfather could remember. “They’ve lost all fear of men. Packs of them attacked our baggage train on our way down from the Twins. Our archers had to feather a dozen before the others fled.” Ser Addam Marbrand confessed that their own column had faced similar troubles on their way up from King’s Landing.

Jaime concentrated on the fare before him, tearing off chunks of bread with his left hand and fumbling at his wine cup with his right. He watched Addam Marbrand charm the girl beside him, watched Steffon Swyft refight the battle for King’s Landing with bread and nuts and carrots. Ser Kennos pulled a serving girl into his lap, urging her to stroke his horn, whilst Ser Dermot regaled some squires with tales of knight errantry in the rainwood. Farther down the table Hugo Vance had closed his eyes. Brooding on the mysteries of life, thought Jaime. That, or napping between courses. He turned back to Lady Mariya. “The outlaws who killed your husband. was it Lord Beric’s band?”

“So we thought, at first.” Though Lady Mariya’s hair was streaked with grey, she was still a handsome woman. “The killers scattered when they left Oldstones. Lord Vypren tracked one band to Fairmarket, but lost them there. Black Walder led hounds and hunters into Hag’s Mire after the others. The peasants denied seeing them, but when questioned sharply they sang a different song. They spoke of a one-eyed man and another who wore a yellow cloak. and a woman, cloaked and hooded.”

“A woman?” He would have thought that the White Fawn would have taught Merrett to stay clear of outlaw wenches. “There was a woman in the Kingswood Brotherhood as well.”

“I know of her.” How not, her tone suggested, when she left her mark upon my husband? “The White Fawn was young and fair, they say. This hooded woman is neither. The peasants would have us believe that her face was torn and scarred, and her eyes terrible to look upon. They claim she led the outlaws.”

“Led them?” Jaime found that hard to believe. “Beric Dondarrion and the red priest. ”

“. were not seen.” Lady Mariya sounded certain.

“Dondarrion’s dead,” said Strongboar. “The Mountain drove a knife through his eye, we have men with us who saw it.”

“That’s one tale,” said Addam Marbrand. “Others will tell you that Lord Beric can’t be killed.”

“Ser Harwyn says those tales are lies.” Lady Amerei wound a braid around her finger. “He has promised me Lord Beric’s head. He’s very gallant.” She was blushing beneath her tears.

Jaime thought back on the head he’d given to Pia. He could almost hear his little brother chuckle. Whatever became of giving women flowers? Tyrion might have asked. He would have had a few choice words for Harwyn Plumm as well, though gallant would not have been one of them. Plumm’s brothers were big, fleshy fellows with thick necks and red faces; loud and lusty, quick to laugh, quick to anger, quick to forgive. Harwyn was a different sort of Plumm; hard-eyed and taciturn, unforgiving. and deadly, with his hammer in his hand. A good man to command a garrison, but not a man to love. Although. Jaime gazed at Lady Amerei.