A Feast for Crows

The next day, the column crossed the stream that formed the boundary between the lands that did fealty to King’s Landing and those beholden to Riverrun. Maester Gulian consulted a map and announced that these hills were held by the brothers Wode, a pair of landed knights sworn to Harrenhal… but their halls had been earth and timber, and only blackened beams remained of them.

No Wodes appeared, nor any of their smallfolk, though some outlaws had taken shelter in the root cellar beneath the second brother’s keep. One of them wore the ruins of a crimson cloak, but Jaime hanged him with the rest. It felt good. This was justice. Make a habit of it, Lannister, and one day men might call you Goldenhand after all. Goldenhand the Just.

The world grew ever greyer as they drew near to Harrenhal. They rode beneath slate skies, beside waters that shone old and cold as a sheet of beaten steel. Jaime found himself wondering if Brienne might have passed this way before him. If she thought that Sansa Stark had made for Riverrun… Had they encountered other travelers, he might have stopped to ask if any of them had chance to see a pretty maid with auburn hair, or a big ugly one with a face that would curdle milk. But there was no one on the roads but wolves, and their howling held no answers.

Across the pewter waters of the lake the towers of Black Harren’s folly appeared at last, five twisted fingers of black, misshapen stone grasping for the sky. Though Littlefinger had been named the Lord of Harrenhal, he seemed in no great haste to occupy his new seat, so it had fallen to Jaime Lannister to “sort out” Harrenhal on his way to Riverrun.

That it needed sorting out he did not doubt. Gregor Clegane had wrested the immense, gloomy castle away from the Bloody Mummers before Cersei recalled him to King’s Landing. No doubt the Mountain’s men were still rattling around inside like so many dried peas in a suit of plate, but they were not ideally suited to restore the king’s peace to the Trident. The only peace Ser Gregor’s lot had ever given anyone was the peace of the grave.

Ser Addam’s outriders had reported that the gates of Harrenhal were closed and barred. Jaime drew his men up before them and commanded Ser Kennos of Kayce to sound the Horn of Herrock, black and twisted and banded in old gold.

When three blasts had echoed off the walls, they heard the groan of iron hinges and the gates swung slowly open. So thick were the walls of Black Harren’s folly that Jaime passed beneath a dozen murder holes before emerging into sudden sunlight in the yard where he’d bid farewell to the Bloody Mummers, not so long ago. Weeds were sprouting from the hard-packed earth, and flies buzzed about the carcass of a horse.

A handful of Ser Gregor’s men emerged from the towers to watch him dismount; hard-eyed, hard-mouthed men, the lot of them. They would have to be, to ride beside the Mountain. About the best that could be said for Gregor’s men was that they were not quite as vile and violent a bunch as the Brave Companions. “Fuck me, Jaime Lannister,” blurted one grey and grizzled man-at-arms. “It’s the bleeding Kingslayer, boys. Fuck me with a spear!”

“Who might you be?” Jaime asked.

“Ser used to call me Shitmouth, if it please m’lord.” He spit in his hands and wiped his cheeks with them, as if that would somehow make him more presentable.

“Charming. Do you command here?”

“Me? Shit, no. M’lord. Bugger me with a bloody spear.” Shitmouth had enough crumbs in his beard to feed the garrison. Jaime had to laugh. The man took that for encouragement. “Bugger me with a bloody spear,” he said again, and started laughing too.

“You heard the man,” Jaime said to Ilyn Payne. “Find a nice long spear, and shove it up his arse.”

Ser Ilyn did not have a spear, but Beardless Jon Bettley was glad to toss him one. Shitmouth’s drunken laughter stopped abruptly. “You keep that bloody thing away from me.”

“Make up your mind,” said Jaime. “Who has the command here? Did Ser Gregor name a castellan?”

“Polliver,” another man said, “only the Hound killed him, m’lord. Him and the Tickler both, and that Sarsfield boy.”

The Hound again. “You know it was Sandor? You saw him?”

“Not us, m’lord. That innkeep told us.”

“It happened at the crossroads inn, my lord.” The speaker was a younger man with a mop of sandy hair. He wore the chain of coins that had once belonged to Vargo Hoat; coins from half a hundred distant cities, silver and gold, copper and bronze, square coins and round coins, triangles and rings and bits of bone. “The innkeep swore the man had one side of his face all burned. His whores told the same tale. Sandor had some boy with him, a ragged peasant lad. They hacked Polly and the Tickler to bloody bits and rode off down the Trident, we were told.”

“Did you send men after them?”

Shitmouth frowned, as if the thought were painful. “No, m’lord. Fuck us all, we never did.”

“When a dog goes mad you cut his throat.”

“Well,” the man said, rubbing his mouth, “I never much liked Polly, that shit, and the dog, he were Ser’s brother, so…”

“We’re bad, m’lord,” broke in the man who wore the coins, “but you’d need to be mad to face the Hound.”

Jaime looked him over. Bolder than the rest, and not as drunk as Shitmouth. “You were afraid of him.”

“I wouldn’t say afraid, m’lord. I’d say we was leaving him for our betters. Someone like Ser. Or you.”

Me, when I had two hands. Jaime did not delude himself. Sandor would make short work of him now. “You have a name?”

“Rafford, if it pleases. Most call me Raff.”

“Raff, gather the garrison together in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths. Your captives as well. I’ll want to see them. Those whores from the crossroads too. Oh, and Hoat. I was distraught to hear that he had died. I’d like to look upon his head.”

When they brought it to him, he found that the Goat’s lips had been sliced off, along with his ears and most of his nose. The crows had supped upon his eyes. It was still recognizably Hoat, however. Jaime would have known his beard anywhere; an absurd rope of hair two feet long, dangling from a pointed chin. Elsewise, only a few leathery strips of flesh still clung to the Qohorik’s skull. “Where is the rest of him?” he asked.

No one wanted to tell him. Finally, Shitmouth lowered his eyes, and muttered, “Rotted, ser. And et.”

“One of the captives was always begging food,” Rafford admitted, “so Ser said to give him roast goat. The Qohorik didn’t have much meat on him, though. Ser took his hands and feet first, then his arms and legs.”

“The fat bugger got most, m’lord,” Shitmouth offered, “but Ser, he said to see that all the captives had a taste. And Hoat too, his own self. That whoreson ’ud slobber when we fed him, and the grease’d run down into that skinny beard o’ his.”

Father, Jaime thought, your dogs have both gone mad. He found himself remembering tales he had first heard as a child at Casterly Rock, of mad Lady Lothston who bathed in tubs of blood and presided over feasts of human flesh within these very walls.

Somehow revenge had lost its savor. “Take this and throw it in the lake.” Jaime tossed Hoat’s head to Peck, and turned to address the garrison. “Until such time as Lord Petyr arrives to claim his seat, Ser Bonifer Hasty shall hold Harrenhal in the name of the crown. Those of you who wish may join him, if he’ll have you. The rest will ride with me to Riverrun.”

The Mountain’s men looked at one another. “We’re owed,” said one. “Ser promised us. Rich rewards, he said.”

“His very words,” Shitmouth agreed. “Rich rewards, for them as rides with me.” A dozen others began to yammer their assent.

Ser Bonifer raised a gloved hand. “Any man who remains with me shall have a hide of land to work, a second hide when he takes a wife, a third at the birth of his first child.”

“Land, ser?” Shitmouth spat. “Piss on that. If we wanted to grub in the bloody dirt, we could have bloody well stayed home, begging your pardon, ser. Rich rewards, Ser said. Meaning gold.”

“If you have a grievance, go to King’s Landing and take it up with my sweet sister.” Jaime turned to Rafford. “I’ll see those captives now. Starting with Ser Wylis Manderly.”

“He the fat one?” asked Rafford.