Ser Hyle pulled off his boots to warm his feet by the fire. When Brienne sat down next to him, he nodded at the far end of the room. “There are bloodstains on the floor over there where Dog is sniffing. They’ve been scrubbed, but the blood soaked deep into the wood, and there’s no getting it out.”

“This is the inn where Sandor Clegane killed three of his brother’s men,” she reminded him.

“’Tis that,” Hunt agreed, “but who is to say that they were the first to die here. or that they’ll be the last.”

“Are you afraid of a few children?”

“Four would be a few. Ten would be a surfeit. This is a cacophony. Children should be wrapped in swaddling clothes and hung upon the wall until the girls grow breasts and the boys are old enough to shave.”

“I feel sorry for them. All of them have lost their mothers and fathers. Some have seen them slain.”

Hunt rolled his eyes. “I forgot that I was talking to a woman. Your heart is as mushy as our septon’s porridge. Can it be? Somewhere inside our swordswench is a mother just squirming to give birth. What you really want is a sweet pink babe to suckle at your teat.” Ser Hyle grinned. “You need a man for that, I hear. A husband, preferably. Why not me?”

“If you still hope to win your wager—”

“What I want to win is you, Lord Selwyn’s only living child. I’ve known men to wed lackwits and suckling babes for prizes a tenth the size of Tarth. I am not Renly Baratheon, I confess it, but I have the virtue of being still amongst the living. Some would say that is my only virtue. Marriage would serve the both of us. Lands for me, and a castle full of these for you.” He waved his hand at the children. “I am capable, I assure you. I’ve sired at least one bastard that I know of. Have no fear, I shan’t inflict her upon you. The last time I went to see her, her mother doused me with a kettle of soup.”

A flush crept up her neck. “My father’s only four-and-fifty. Not too old to wed again and get a son by his new wife.”

“That’s a risk. if your father weds again and if his bride proves fertile and if the babe’s a boy. I’ve made worse wagers.”

“And lost them. Play your game with someone else, ser.”

“So speaks a maid who has never played the game with anyone. Once you do you’ll take a different view. In the dark you’d be as beautiful as any other woman. Your lips were made for kissing.”

“They are lips,” said Brienne. “All lips are the same.”

“And all lips are made for kissing,” Hunt agreed pleasantly. “Leave your chamber door unbarred tonight, and I will steal into your bed and prove the truth of what I say.”

“If you do, you’ll be a eunuch when you leave.” Brienne got up and walked away from him.

Septon Meribald asked if he might lead the children in a grace, ignoring the small girl crawling naked across the table. “Aye,” said Willow, snatching up the crawler before she reached the porridge. So they bowed their heads together and thanked the Father and the Mother for their bounty. all but the black-haired boy from the forge, who crossed his arms against his chest and sat glowering as the others prayed. Brienne was not the only one to notice. When the prayer was done Septon Meribald looked across the table, and said, “Do you have no love for the gods, son?”

“Not for your gods.” Gendry stood abruptly. “I have work to do.” He stalked out without a bite of food.

“Is there some other god he loves?” asked Hyle Hunt.

“The Lord of Light,” piped one scrawny boy, nigh to six.

Willow hit him with her spoon. “Ben Big Mouth. There’s food. You should be eating it, not bothering m’lords with talk.”

The children fell upon the supper like wolves upon a wounded deer, quarreling over codfish, tearing the barley bread to pieces, and getting porridge everywhere. Even the huge wheel of cheese did not long survive. Brienne contented herself with fish and bread and carrots, whilst Septon Meribald fed two morsels to Dog for every one he ate himself. Outside, a rain began to fall. Inside, the fire crackled, and the common room was filled by the sounds of chewing, and Willow smacking children with her spoon. “One day that little girl will make some man a frightful wife,” Ser Hyle observed. “That poor ’prentice boy, most like.”

“Someone should take him some food before it’s all gone.”

“You’re someone.”

She wrapped a wedge of cheese, a heel of bread, a dried apple, and two chunks of flaky fried cod in a square of cloth. When Podrick got up to follow her outside, she told him to sit back down and eat. “I will not be long.”

The rain was coming down heavy in the yard. Brienne covered the food with a fold of her cloak. Some of the horses whinnied at her as she made her way past the stables. They are hungry too.

Gendry was at his forge, bare-chested beneath his leather apron. He was beating on a sword as if he wished it were a foe, his sweat-soaked hair falling across his brow. She watched him for a moment. He has Renly’s eyes and Renly’s hair, but not his build. Lord Renly was more lithe than brawny. not like his brother Robert, whose strength was fabled.

It was not until he stopped to wipe his brow that Gendry saw her standing there. “What do you want?”

“I brought supper.” She opened the cloth for him to see.

“If I wanted food, I would have eaten some.”

“A smith needs to eat to keep his strength up.”

“Are you my mother?”

“No.” She put down the food. “Who was your mother?”

“What’s that to you?”

“You were born in King’s Landing.” The way he spoke made her certain of it.

“Me and many more.” He plunged the sword into a tub of rainwater to quench it. The hot steel hissed angrily.

“How old are you?” Brienne asked. “Is your mother still alive? And your father, who was he?”

“You ask too many questions.” He set down the sword. “My mother’s dead and I never knew my father.”

“You’re a bastard.”

He took it for an insult. “I’m a knight. That sword will be mine own, once it’s done.”

What would a knight be doing working at a smithy? “You have black hair and blue eyes, and you were born in the shadow of the Red Keep. Has no one ever remarked upon your face?”

“What’s wrong with my face? It’s not as ugly as yours.”

“In King’s Landing you must have seen King Robert.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. At tourneys, from afar. Once at Baelor’s Sept. The gold cloaks shoved us aside so he could pass. Another time I was playing near the Mud Gate when he come back from a hunt. He was so drunk he almost rode me down. A big fat sot, he was, but a better king than these sons of his.”

They are not his sons. Stannis told it true, that day he met with Renly. Joffrey and Tommen were never Robert’s sons. This boy, though. “Listen to me,” Brienne began. Then she heard Dog barking, loud and frantic. “Someone is coming.”

“Friends,” said Gendry, unconcerned.

“What sort of friends?” Brienne moved to the door of the smithy to peer out through the rain.

He shrugged. “You’ll meet them soon enough.”

I may not want to meet them, Brienne thought, as the first riders came splashing through the puddles into the yard. Beneath the patter of the rain and Dog’s barking, she could hear the faint clink of swords and mail from beneath their ragged cloaks. She counted them as they came. Two, four, six, seven. Some of them were wounded, judging from the way they rode. The last man was massive and hulking, as big as two of the others. His horse was blown and bloody, staggering beneath his weight. All the riders had their hoods up against the lashing rain, save him alone. His face was broad and hairless, maggot white, his round cheeks covered with weeping sores.

Brienne sucked in her breath and drew Oathkeeper. Too many, she thought, with a start of fear, they are too many. “Gendry,” she said in a low voice, “you’ll want a sword, and armor. These are not your friends. They’re no one’s friends.”