“Bugger that. ” Mikken wiped the blood from his mouth. “I serve the Starks, not some treasonous squid of—aah .” The butt of the spear smashed him face-first into the stone floor.

“Smiths have strong arms and weak heads,” observed Theon. “But if the rest of you serve me as loyally as you served Ned Stark, you’ll find me as generous a lord as you could want.”

On his hands and knees, Mikken spat blood. Please don’t , Bran wished at him, but the blacksmith shouted, “If you think you can hold the north with this sorry lot o’—”

“Who else has something to say?” asked Theon Greyjoy.

“Hodor hodor hodor hodor ,” shouted Hodor, eyes wide.

“Someone kindly shut that halfwit up.”

Two ironmen began to beat Hodor with the butts of their spears. The stableboy dropped to the floor, trying to shield himself with his hands.

“I will be as good a lord to you as Eddard Stark ever was.” Theon raised his voice to be heard above the smack of wood on flesh. “Betray me, though, and you’ll wish you hadn’t. And don’t think the men you see here are the whole of my power. Torrhen’s Square and Deepwood Motte will soon be ours as well, and my uncle is sailing up the Saltspear to seize Moat Cailin. If Robb Stark can stave off the Lannisters, he may reign as King of the Trident hereafter, but House Greyjoy holds the north now.”

“Stark’s lords will fight you,” the man Reek called out. “That bloated pig at White Harbor for one, and them Umbers and Karstarks too. You’ll need men. Free me and I’m yours.”

Theon weighed him a moment. “You’re cleverer than you smell, but I could not suffer that stench.”

“Well,” said Reek, “I could wash some. If I was free.”

“A man of rare good sense.” Theon smiled. “Bend the knee.” one of the ironmen handed Reek a sword, and he laid it at Theon’s feet and swore obedience to House Greyjoy and King Balon. Bran could not look. The green dream was coming true.

“M’lord Greyjoy!” Osha stepped past Mikken’s body. “I was brought here captive too. You were there the day I was taken.”

I thought you were a friend , Bran thought, hurt.

“I need fighters,” Theon declared, “not kitchen sluts.”

“It was Robb Stark put me in the kitchens. For the best part of a year, I’ve been left to scour kettles, scrape grease, and warm the straw for this one.” She threw a look at Gage. “I’ve had a bellyful of it. Put a spear in my hand again.”

“I got a spear for you right here,” said the bald man who’d killed Mikken. He grabbed his crotch, grinning.

Osha drove her bony knee up between his legs. “You keep that soft pink thing.” She wrested the spear from him and used the butt to knock him off his feet. “I’ll have me the wood and iron.” The bald man writhed on the floor while the other reavers sent up gales of laughter.

Theon laughed with the rest. “You’ll do,” he said. “Keep the spear; Stygg can find another. Now bend the knee and swear.”

When no one else rushed forward to pledge service, they were dismissed with a warning to do their work and make no trouble. Hodor was given the task of bearing Bran back to his bed. His face was all ugly from the beating, his nose swollen and one eye closed. “Hodor,” he sobbed between cracked lips as he lifted Bran in huge strong arms and bloody hands and carried him back out into the rain.

“There’s ghosts, I know there is.” Hot Pie was kneading bread, his arms floured up to his elbows. “Pia saw something in the buttery last night.”

Arya made a rude noise. Pia was always seeing things in the buttery. Usually they were men. “Can I have a tart?” she asked. “You baked a whole tray.”

“I need a whole tray. Ser Amory is partial to them.”

She hated Ser Amory. “Let’s spit on them.”

Hot Pie looked around nervously. The kitchens were full of shadows and echoes, but the other cooks and scullions were all asleep in the cavernous lofts above the ovens. “He’ll know.”

“He will not,” Arya said. “You can’t taste spit .”

“If he does, it’s me they’ll whip.” Hot Pie stopped his kneading. “You shouldn’t even be here. It’s the black of night.”

It was, but Arya never minded. Even in the black of night, the kitchens were never still; there was always someone rolling dough for the morning bread, stirring a kettle with a long wooden spoon, or butchering a hog for Ser Amory’s breakfast bacon. Tonight it was Hot Pie.

“If Pinkeye wakes and finds you gone—” Hot Pie said.

“Pinkeye never wakes.” His true name was Mebble, but everyone called him Pinkeye for his runny eyes. “Not once he’s passed out.” Each morning he broke his fast with ale. Each evening he fell into a drunken sleep after supper, wine-colored spit running down his chin. Arya would wait until she heard him snoring, then creep barefoot up the servants’ stair, making no more noise than the mouse she’d been. She carried neither candle nor taper. Syrio had told her once that darkness could be her friend, and he was right. If she had the moon and the stars to see by, that was enough. “I bet we could escape, and Pinkeye wouldn’t even notice I was gone,” she told Hot Pie.

“I don’t want to escape. It’s better here than it was in them woods. I don’t want to eat no worms. Here, sprinkle some flour on the board.”

Arya cocked her head. “What’s that?”

“What? I don’t—”

“Listen with your ears , not your mouth. That was a warhorn. Two blasts, didn’t you hear? And there, that’s the portcullis chains, someone’s going out or coming in. Want to go see?” The gates of Harrenhal had not been opened since the morning Lord Tywin had marched with his host.

“I’m making the morning bread,” Hot Pie complained. “Anyhow I don’t like it when it’s dark, I told you.”

“I’m going. I’ll tell you after. Can I have a tart?”

“No.”

She filched one anyway, and ate it on her way out. It was stuffed with chopped nuts and fruit and cheese, the crust flaky and still warm from the oven. Eating Ser Amory’s tart made Arya feel daring. Barefoot surefoot lightfoot , she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal.

The horn had stirred the castle from sleep; men were coming out into the ward to see what the commotion was about. Arya fell in with the others. A line of ox carts were rumbling under the portcullis. Plunder , she knew at once. The riders escorting the carts spoke in a babble of queer tongues. Their armor glinted pale in the moonlight, and she saw a pair of striped black-and-white horses. The Bloody Mummers. Arya withdrew a little deeper into the shadows, and watched as a huge black bear rolled by, caged in the back of a wagon. Other carts were loaded down with silver plate, weapons and shields, bags of flour, pens of squealing hogs and scrawny dogs and chickens. Arya was thinking how long it had been since she’d had a slice off a pork roast when she saw the first of the prisoners.

By his bearing and the proud way he held his head, he must have been a lord. She could see mail glinting beneath his torn red surcoat. At first Arya took him for a Lannister, but when he passed near a torch she saw his device was a silver fist, not a lion. His wrists were bound tightly, and a rope around one ankle tied him to the man behind him, and him to the man behind him, so the whole column had to shuffle along in a lurching lockstep. Many of the captives were wounded. If any halted, one of the riders would trot up and give him a lick of the whip to get him moving again. She tried to judge how many prisoners there were, but lost count before she got to fifty. There were twice that many at least. Their clothing was stained with mud and blood, and in the torchlight it was hard to make out all their badges and sigils, but some of those Arya glimpsed she recognized. Twin towers. Sunburst. Bloody man. Battle-axe. The battle-axe is for Cerwyn, and the white sun on black is Karstark. They’re northmen. My father’s men, and Robb’s. She didn’t like to think what that might mean.