Chapter 30 Chapter 29 Arya

Stonetown was the largest town Arya had seen since leaving King's Landing, and Harwin said her father had won a famous victory here. "The Mad King's troops were after Robert, trying to catch him before he joined your father," he told Arya as they rode toward the gate. "The young Duke of Storm's End was wounded and was cared for by some local friends, while Prime Minister Earl Clinton himself led an army to capture the town and began house-to-house searches. Duke Eddard and your grandfather arrived just in time before they found it , broke through the city defenses, and fought fierce street battles with Earl Connington. The two sides fought in every street, even on the roofs, and all the church bells rang to warn the people to lock the doors and windows. When the bell rang, Robert He rushed out from his hiding place to join the battle. It is said that he killed six enemies that day. One of them was the famous knight Mies Mooton, who was once an attendant of Prince Rhaegar. He wanted to kill the prime minister too, but unfortunately the melee The two of them had no chance to fight. Yet Connington wounded your grandfather Tully badly, killed the favorite of the Vale, Ser Denys Arryn, but when he realized that the battle was hopeless, he ran away as fast as the griffin on his coat of arms. Posterity Call it the Battle of the Bells. Robert used to say it was your father's victory, not his."

Judging by what she saw, Arya believed that there had been a recent battle here as well.The city gate is made of new logs, and a pile of charred planks outside the wall tells the fate of the old city gate. Shitang town was tightly guarded, but when the captain of the city gate saw who they were, he opened the assault port. "Where are you going to get food?" Tom asked curiously when he entered. "The situation on our side is not too bad. The 'mad hunter' has brought a flock of sheep, there is a trade on the Blackwater River, and luckily the crops on the south side of the river have not been burned. Damn, many shameless guys came to rob us. The wolf cubs have come, the blood troupe has come, looking for food, property, chicks, and the damned kingslayer. It is said that he slipped through Duke Edmure's fingers."

"Duke Edmure?" Lemon frowned, "Duke Hoster is dead?" "Dead, dying. Do you think the Lannisters will run towards the Blackwater? The 'Mad Hunter' decided that was the quickest way to King's Landing." The captain didn't wait for an answer. "He's searched with the dogs, and if Ser Jaime comes, he'll be found. Look, I've seen the dogs tear up bears. I wonder if they like the smell of lions?" "A gnawed corpse is of no use to anybody," said Lemon. "That fool 'Mad Hunter' should know it all." "When the westerners came over, they fucked the hunter's wife and sister, burned his crops, ate half of his sheep, deliberately slaughtered the other half, killed six dogs, and threw their bodies into his well. I Dare I say, a gnawed corpse is just what he likes—and mine."

"He's an idiot," said Lemon, "that's all I can say. And you, you're even stupider than him." The bandits marched down the street where her father had fought, and Arya rode between Harwin and Anguy.She saw the church on the hill, and below it was a small, sturdy graystone manor, which seemed a little small compared to the town.One-third of the remaining houses were charred black empty shells, with no one in sight. "The townspeople are all dead?" "Where is it, I'm just shy." An Gai pointed to the two crossbowmen on the roof and a few boys curled up in the ruins of the tavern with black and gray faces.A baker up ahead opened the shutters and yelled at the lemons.The voice made more people come out of their hiding places, and Shitang Town slowly regained its vitality.

In the market square in the middle of the town stands a fountain in the shape of a leaping trout, with water flowing from its mouth into a shallow pool.There the women drew water with pails and jugs.A few feet away, a dozen iron cages hung from creaking stakes.Crow cages, Arya knew the law—crows outside, flapping the bars; people inside, until death.Lemon frowned and reined in, "What's going on?" "Justice," replied the woman by the pool. "Oh, you don't have enough hemp rope?" "Sir Wilbert's order?" asked Tom. A man smiled bitterly and said: "Sir Wilbert slaughtered the lion a year ago. His sons followed the young wolf master and went to the west to raise them fat. It's 'Mad Hunter'."

Wolf.Arya froze for a moment.It's Robb's man, my father's man.Involuntarily she rode towards the row of cages.The space in the bars was so small that the imprisoned could neither sit down nor turn around, but stood naked, exposed to the sun and rain.The first three caged people were dead, scavengers eating their eyes, staring at her with empty sockets.A fourth moved as she passed.Around his mouth was a messy beard full of blood and flies.When he spoke, the flies scattered and buzzed around his head. "Water," said the hoarse voice, "please...water..." The people in the next cage heard the sound and opened their eyes. "Here," he said, "here, me, water." He was an old man, with a gray beard and a bald head speckled with brown spots.

There was another dead man behind the old man, with a big red beard and a ragged gray bandage wrapped around his right ear and temple. The most frightening thing was that there was only a brown scabbed hole between his legs, which was full of maggots.Then there was a fat man, and the crow cage was so small, it was impossible to imagine how they got him in it in the first place.The fence pressed painfully into his stomach, and the flesh bulged out from between the iron bars. He was burned bright red from head to toe in the sun all day long.The cage shook and creaked as he moved.Arya saw pale streaks on his skin where the iron bars kept the sun from shining.

"Whose servants are you?" she asked them. Hearing her question, the fat man opened his eyes.The skin around the eyes was so red that Arya thought of boiled eggs floating on a plate of blood. "Water... drink water..." "Whose?" she asked again. "Leave them alone, boy," the townsman told her, "it's none of your business. You go your way." "What did they do?" she asked him. "They hacked eight people to death at Tuandou Waterfall," he explained. "They said they were looking for the Kingslayer. If they couldn't find it, they began to rape and murder." A corpse full of maggots. "That guy got what he deserved for his obscenity. Well, let's go."

"One bite," the fat man called down, "please, boy, just one bite." The old man raised his arms and grabbed the railing, and his cage shook violently. "Water," gasped the man with the beard full of flies. She looked at their dirty hair, their shaggy beards, their red eyes, their lips cracked and bleeding with thirst.They are wolves, she thought, as am I.Is this her race?How could they be Robb's men?She wanted to beat them, beat them hard; she wanted to cry too.All the northerners—lived and dead—seemed to be looking at her expectantly.The old man squeezed three fingers from between the iron bars, "Water," he said, "Water."

Arya jumped off her horse.They can't hurt me, they're all dying.She took out the cup from the bedroll and walked to the fountain. "What do you want, boy?" cried the townsman. "It's none of your business." She ignored it and lifted the cup to the fish's mouth.Water spattered fingers and sleeves, but Arya didn't move until the glass was full.When she turned back to the cage, the townspeople stopped her, "Stay away from them, boy—" "She's a girl," Harwin said, "don't touch her." "That's right," said Lemon. "Lord Berry wouldn't approve of people being caged and dying of thirst. Why don't you hang them like decent people?"

"What they did at Tuandou Waterfall is not a decent thing!" the townspeople yelled at him. The gap between the bars was too narrow to pass the cup through, but Harwin and Gendry came to help.She stepped on Harwin's folded hands, jumped onto Gendry's shoulders, and grabbed hold of the cage's top bars.The fat man pressed his face against the bars, and Arya poured the water down.He sucked eagerly, and the water ran down his head, face and hands, and he went to lick the wet fence again.He would have licked her fingers if Arya hadn't snapped her hand away.Then she fed water to the other two in the same way, and a large crowd gathered to watch. "Mad Hunter will know about it!" a man threatened. "He won't like it. Yes, he won't like it!" "Then he doesn't like this even more." An Gai stringed the longbow, took out an arrow from the quiver, and shot it.The feathered arrow went from bottom to top, and it was piercing the fat man's jaw. He shook and died, but the cage prevented him from falling.The archer fired two more arrows, killing the other two northerners.For a while, the only sound in the market square was the splashing of water and the buzzing of flies. valarmorghulis.Arya muttered silently. To the east of the market square stood a modest inn, with plastered walls, broken windows, and half the roof burned but the holes patched.There is a wooden signboard hanging on the door, depicting a peach with a big bite.They dismounted by the stables in the corner of the inn, and Greenbeard called out to the groom. The buxom red-haired shopkeeper yelled cheerfully at the sight of them and made mocking jokes. "Ha ha, you green beard? Grey beard? Mother of Mercy, when did you get so old? Lemon, is that you? Still wearing this old cloak, don't you? I know you never wash it, I know, You're afraid that after the piss on it is cleaned, we find you a runaway Kingsguard! Tom Sevenstrings, lecherous old goat! Come to see the son? It's late, it's late, he rode away with the damned hunter ...here, don't say he's not your son!" "He doesn't have my voice," Tom protested feebly. "But he has your nose. Yes, the girls say, and the rest is pretty much like you." She spotted Gendry now, and gave him a pinch on the face. "Look, what a fine bull. That arm, wait for Alice to see. Oh, he's still blushing like a girl. Well, Alice will fix it for you, boy, she won't No wonder." Arya had never seen Gendry blush. "Danny, don't touch Daniel, he's a good boy," said Tom Sevenstrings, "we just need a bed for a comfortable night's sleep." "This can only represent your own opinion, my good singer." An Gai put his arms around a robust young maid who had as many freckles as him. "Of course there are beds," said the red-haired Tansy. "The Peach Inn is never short of beds. But you have to go to the bathtub first. The last time you came to spend the night under the eaves of my mother, I left all the fleas behind." She poked the green-bearded chest. "You're still green! Do you want to eat?" "Of course it's disrespectful if you have it," Tom confirmed. "When did you say no, Tom?" the woman snapped. "Here, I'll roast a lamb for your friends, and give you a shriveled old mouse. Well, you're not worthy of that, unless I hum a song or two to my old lady, and maybe I'll soften my heart. Oh, no Way, why do I like sympathy. Come on, come on. Cass, Lana, boil some pots of water. Jixin, help me undress them, they have to be boiled too." Her threats were fulfilled one by one.Arya tried desperately to tell: she had only washed twice in Acorn Hall less than two weeks ago, but the redhead ignored it.The two maids were arguing about whether she was a man or a woman while carrying her up the stairs abruptly.The maid named Hayley won, so the other had to fetch hot water and rub her back with a bristle brush so hard it almost peeled off a layer of skin.They took the clothes Lady Smallwood had given her, put her in lacy linen, and made her look like Sansa's doll.Fortunately, she was hungry and had no time to take care of so much, so she hurried downstairs to eat after they were done. Arya remembers Syrio Forel's teaching to "see the truth" as she sits in the Great Hall in her clumsy girl's clothes.She found that there were more maids here than in any other inn, and most of them were young and pretty.Many men had been coming and going at the Peach Inn since dusk, but they did not linger in the hall, and even when Tom took out his wooden harp and sang "Six Girls in the Pool," it attracted little attention.The wooden stairs were old and tall, and the man took the girl upstairs, making a loud creaking sound. "I bet it's a brothel," she whispered to Gendry. "You don't even know what a brothel is." "I know," she insisted, "that it's an inn with lots of girls." He blushed again. "Then what are you doing here?" he asked, "Damn it, noble ladies shouldn't come to brothels, everyone knows." A girl sat on the stool opposite him. "Who's the noble lady? The thin one?" She looked at Arya and grinned. "I am the king's daughter." Arya knew she had been mocked. "You are not." "Ah, that might be." The girl shrugged, and one side of her coat slipped off. "They say King Robert slept with my mother when he was hiding here, before he went to war. He fucked all the women, but Raslin said he liked my mother best." The girl does have a king's hair, Arya thought, thick and thick, charcoal.This doesn't explain anything.So did Gendry.Many people have black hair. "My mother named me Bell," the girl told Gendry, "in honor of that battle. Well, I bet I could ring your bell, would you like it?" "No," he said stiffly. "No wonder, I bet you think." She slid a hand down his arm. "I don't charge for the friends of Soros and King Lightning." "No, I said no." Gendry got up abruptly, left the table, and walked into the night outside. Zhong'er turned to Arya, "He doesn't like girls?" Arya shrugged. "He's only stupid, and he likes to polish his helmet and hammer his sword." "Oh," Zhong'er pulled the coat back to her shoulders, and went to talk to Lucky Jack.After a while, she was sitting on his lap, giggling and drinking from his glass.Greenbeard wanted two girls, one on each knee.Anguy disappeared with the freckle-faced girl, and Lemon was gone.Tom of the Seven Strings sang "Spring Blooms" by the fireplace.Arya listened, sipping the wine and water the red-haired woman had allowed her to drink.In the square, the dead were rotting in crow cages, but everyone in the Peach Inn was in high spirits, but some laughed too exaggeratedly, as if trying to cover up something. Now would be a good time to sneak out and steal a horse, but Arya saw no advantage in doing so.At most, she rode to the gate of the city.That captain would never let me go, and if he did, Harwin would come after me, or the 'mad hunter' with the dog.She wished she had a map and knew how far Stonetown was from Riverrun. Before she knew it, Arya's glass was empty and she yawned.Gendry wasn't back yet.Tom on the Seven Strings sang "Two Hearts That Beat Like One," and sang "Kiss a girl."In the corner by the window, Lemon and Harwin were whispering to red-haired Tansy. "... spent the night in Jaime's cell," she heard the woman say, "with the other woman, the one who killed Renly. The three of them stayed together, and by the next morning Lady Catelyn was Let him go for love." She sneered from the back of her throat. It's not true, Arya thought. Mother never would.She suddenly felt sad, angry, and alone. An old man sat down beside her. "Oh, isn't this a beautiful little peach?" His breath smelled like a dead man in a cage, and his little piggy eyes looked her up and down, "What's the name of my lovely peach girl?" For a long time, she didn't know how to pretend.She wasn't a peach girl, but here, in front of this stinking strange drunk, couldn't be Arya Stark either. "I'm……" "She's my sister." Gendry put his hand heavily on the old man's shoulder and squeezed it hard. "Don't touch her." The man turned to argue, saw Gendry's figure, and drew back. "She's your sister, huh? Then what kind of brother are you? I won't bring my sister to the Peach Inn, hey, never." He stood up from the stool, muttered and walked away, looking for other with. "Why do you say that?" Arya jumped up. "You're not my brother." "That's right," he said angrily, "I was born in a humble family, so I cannot be a relative of the young lady." Arya was taken aback by his anger. "I did not mean that." "That's what you mean." He sat down on the stool and picked up a glass of wine. "Go away. I want to have a quiet drink and then maybe go find that brunette girl and ask her to ring my clock." "but……" "I said, go away, miss." Arya turned away, leaving him behind.Stubborn bastard boy, that's all.He could strike as many bells as he liked, and it was none of her business. Their bedrooms were arranged at the top of the stairs, under the eaves.The Peach Inn might not be short of beds, but for this group of bandits, it only provided one.But it was a big bed, which filled almost the whole room, and the thatch mattress, though moldy, was enough for everyone.At this moment, the whole bed is exclusively for her.Her clothes hung on wall hooks, among Gendry's and Lemon's things.So Arya took off her lace cloth, pulled her own short dress over her head, and climbed into bed, slipping under the blankets. "Queen Cersei," she whispered into the pillow, "King Joffrey, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn. Dunson, Raff, Polliver. Tickler, The Hound, Ser Gregor the Mountain." She sometimes Love the shuffling, it helps to keep track of names and what they do.Some of them may be dead, she thought, perhaps locked in iron cages somewhere, with crows pecking out their eyes. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.That night, she dreamed that she was a wolf again, walking through the damp woods, and the air smelled of rain, carrion, and blood.In the dream, it was all good, and Arya knew she had nothing to fear.She is strong, swift, and fierce, and her Clan, her brothers and sisters, all follow her.Together, they capture a frightened horse, slit its throat, and feast on it.The moon broke through the dark clouds, and she raised her head to the sky and screamed. When dawn came, she was awakened by a dog barking. Arya sat up with a yawn.Gendry shifted to her left, and Lemoncloak purred loudly to her right, almost drowned out by the barking of the dogs outside.There must have been dozens of dogs.She crawled out of the blanket, jumped over Lemon, Tom, and Lucky Jack, to the window.The shutters were opened, and the cold wind and humidity rushed in together, and the sky was gray and gloomy.In the square below, the dogs barked and circled, howling and growling.The pack included black mastiffs, lean wolfhounds, black and white collies, and a breed Arya didn't recognize—a brindle beast with yellow tusks and thick, shaggy hair.Between the hotel and the fountain, a dozen or so riders straddled their horses, overseeing the townspeople opening the fat man's iron cage, pulling his arms hard, tearing out the swollen corpse and throwing it on the ground.The dogs rushed forward, tearing pieces of flesh from the bones. Arya heard a rider laugh. "This is your new castle, bloody Lannister bastard," he said. "It's a little small for you, but don't worry, it'll find a way to fit you in." There was a silent prisoner beside him, The wrists were bound with loops of hemp rope, and many townspeople poured shit on him, but he refused to hide. "You'll rot in your cage," cried his captor, "and the crows will peck out your eyeballs, and we'll spend your Lannister money! When the crows are full, we'll put you The rest is for your bloody brother. But I doubt he'll recognize you when the time comes." The noise woke up many guests in the Peach Inn.Gendry huddled beside Arya, looking out the window, and Tom stood behind them, naked as he had been born. "Damn, what are you shouting for?" Lemon complained on the bed, "I want to sleep well." "Where's Greenbeard?" Tom asked him. "On the tansy bed," said Lemon, "what's the matter?" "Find him and the shooter. The 'Mad Hunter' is back and wants to put the man in a cage." "Lannister," Arya said, "I heard him say 'Lannister.'" "Caught the Kingslayer?" Gendry wondered. In the square below, a stone fell on the captive's cheek, causing him to turn his head.Not a kingslayer, Arya thought, but the gods heard my prayers after all.