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October 26, 2022 - October 13, 2023
You will return to Lord Gyles and inform him that he does not have my leave to die.”
“Your wife may whelp before that. You’ll want your child, I expect. I’ll send him to you when he’s born. With a trebuchet.”
Oberyn had taken a different view of matters. “If you would wed, wed,” the Red Viper had told his own daughters. “If not, take your pleasure where you find it. There’s little enough of it in this world. Choose well, though. If you saddle yourself with a fool or a brute, don’t look to me to rid you of him. I gave you the tools to do that for yourself.”
“Who is it? Who have I been betrothed to, all these years?” “It makes no matter. He is dead.” That left her more baffled than ever. “The old ones are so frail. Was it a broken hip, a chill, the gout?” “It was a pot of molten gold. We princes make our careful plans and the gods smash them all awry.”
“His natural daughter?” Lady Sybell looked as if she had swallowed a lemon. “You want a Westerling to wed a bastard?” “No more than I want Joy to marry the son of some scheming turncloak bitch. She deserves better.” Jaime would happily have strangled the woman with her seashell necklace. Joy was a sweet child, albeit a lonely one; her father had been Jaime’s favorite uncle. “Your daughter is worth ten of you, my lady. You’ll leave with Edmure and Ser Forley on the morrow. Until then, you would do well to stay out of my sight.”
In the purple hall, Dany found her ebon bench piled high about with satin pillows. The sight brought a wan smile to her lips. Ser Barristan’s work, she knew. The old knight was a good man, but sometimes very literal. It was only a jape, ser, she thought, but she sat on one of the pillows just the same.
“Women too? Our brothers are not accustomed to having women amongst them, my lord. Their vows … there will be fights, rapes …” “These women have knives and know how to use them.” “And the first time one of these spearwives slits the throat of one of our brothers, what then?” “We will have lost a man,” said Jon, “but we have just gained sixty-three. You’re good at counting, my lord. Correct me if I’m wrong, but my reckoning leaves us sixty-two ahead.”
“Would you have me run?” “I would have you live. I love you.” No, she thought, you love some innocent maiden who lives only in your head, a frightened child in need of your protection. “I do not love you,” she said bluntly, “and I do not run.”
Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with pain.
There are ghosts in Winterfell, he thought, and I am one of them.
Jon turned to Alys Karstark. “My lady. Are you ready?” “Yes. Oh, yes.” “You’re not scared?” The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. “Let him be scared of me.”
Cunt again? It was odd how men like Suggs used that word to demean women when it was the only part of a woman they valued.
Women were always the cruelest where other women were concerned.