Free A Feast for Dragons by George R. R. Martin Page A

leviathan of Volmark, the nooses of the Myres. The rest were Harlaw
scythes. Boremund placed his upon a pale blue field, Hotho’s was girdled within
an embattled border, and the Knight had quartered his with the gaudy peacock of
his mother’s House. Even Sigfryd Silverhair showed two scythes counterchanged
on a field divided bendwise. Only the Lord Harlaw displayed the silver
scythe plain upon a night-black field, as it had flown in the dawn of days:
Rodrik, called the Reader, Lord of the Ten Towers, Lord of Harlaw, Harlaw of
Harlaw . . . her favorite uncle.
    Lord Rodrik’s high seat was vacant. Two scythes of beaten
silver crossed above it, so huge that even a giant would have difficulty
wielding them, but beneath were only empty cushions. Asha was not surprised.
The feast was long concluded. Only bones and greasy platters remained upon the
trestle tables. The rest was drinking, and her uncle Rodrik had never been
partial to the company of quarrelsome drunks.
    She turned to Three-Tooth, an old woman of fearful age who
had been her uncle’s steward since she was known as Twelve-Tooth. “My uncle is
with his books?”
    “Aye, where else?” The woman was so old that a septon had
once said she must have nursed the Crone. That was when the Faith was still
tolerated on the isles. Lord Rodrik had kept septons at Ten Towers, not for his
soul’s sake but for his books. “With the books, and Botley. He was with him
too.”
    Botley’s standard hung in the hall, a shoal of silver fish
upon a pale green field, though Asha had not seen his Swiftfin amongst
the other longships. “I had heard my nuncle Crow’s Eye had old Sawane Botley
drowned.”
    “Lord Tristifer Botley, this one is.”
    Tris. She wondered what had happened to Sawane’s
elder son, Harren. I will find out soon enough, no doubt. This should be
awkward. She had not seen Tris Botley since . . . no, she ought not dwell
on it. “And my lady mother?”
    “Abed,” said Three-Tooth, “in the Widow’s Tower.”
    Aye, where else? The widow the tower was named after
was her aunt. Lady Gwynesse had come home to mourn after her husband had died
off Fair Isle during Balon Greyjoy’s first rebellion. “I will only stay until
my grief has passed,” she had told her brother, famously, “though by rights Ten
Towers should be mine, for I am seven years your elder.” Long years had passed
since then, but still the widow lingered, grieving, and muttering from time to
time that the castle should be hers. And now Lord Rodrik has a second
half-mad widowed sister beneath his roof, Asha reflected. Small wonder
if he seeks solace in his books.
    Even now, it was hard to credit that frail, sickly Lady
Alannys had outlived her husband Lord Balon, who had seemed so hard and strong.
When Asha had sailed away to war, she had done so with a heavy heart, fearing
that her mother might well die before she could return. Not once had she
thought that her father might perish instead. The Drowned God plays savage
japes upon us all, but men are crueler still. A sudden storm and a broken
rope had sent Balon Greyjoy to his death. Or so they claim.
    Asha had last seen her mother when she stopped at Ten Towers
to take on fresh water, on her way north to strike at Deepwood Motte. Alannys
Harlaw never had the sort of beauty the singers cherished, but her daughter had
loved her fierce strong face and the laughter in her eyes. On that last visit,
though, she had found Lady Alannys in a window seat huddled beneath a pile of
furs, staring out across the sea. Is this my mother, or her ghost? she
remembered thinking as she’d kissed her cheek.
    Her mother’s skin had been parchment thin, her long hair
white. Some pride remained in the way she held her head, but her eyes were dim
and cloudy, and her mouth had trembled when she asked after Theon. “Did you
bring my baby boy?” she had asked. Theon had been ten years old when he was
carried off to Winterfell a hostage, and so far as Lady Alannys was