A Feast for Crows полностью

Brienne’s flesh prickled. One shove, and I’ll be down there with the tower. She stepped back. “Keep your hands off me.”

Crabb made a face. “I was only. ”

“I don’t care what you were only. Where’s the gate?”

“Around t’other side.” He hesitated. “This fool o’ yours, he’s not a man to hold a grudge, is he?” he said nervously. “I mean, last night I got to thinking that he might be angry at old Nimble Dick, on account o’ that map I sold him, and how I left out that the smugglers don’t land here no more.”

“With the gold that you’ve got coming, you can give him back whatever he paid you for your help. ” Brienne could not imagine Dontos Hollard posing a threat. “That is, if he’s even here.”

They made a circuit of the walls. The castle had been triangular, with square towers at each corner. Its gates were badly rotted. When Brienne tugged at one, the wood cracked and peeled away in long wet splinters, and half the gate came down on her. She could see more green gloom inside. The forest had breached the walls, and swallowed keep and bailey. But there was a portcullis behind the gate, its teeth sunk deep into the soft muddy ground. The iron was red with rust, but it held when Brienne rattled it. “No one’s used this gate for a long time.”

“I could climb over,” offered Podrick. “By the cliff. Where the wall fell down.”

“It’s too dangerous. Those stones looked loose to me, and that red ivy’s poisonous. There has to be a postern gate.”

They found it on the north side of the castle, half-hidden behind a huge blackberry bramble. The berries had all been picked, and half the bush had been hacked down to cut a path to the door. The sight of the broken branches filled Brienne with disquiet. “Someone’s been through here, and recently.”

“Your fool and those girls,” said Crabb. “I told you.”

Sansa? Brienne could not believe it. Even a wine-soaked sot like Dontos Hollard would have better sense than to bring her to this bleak place. Something about the ruins filled her with unease. She would not find the Stark girl here. but she had to have a look. Someone was here, she thought. Someone who needed to stay hidden. “I’m going in,” she said. “Crabb, you’ll come with me. Podrick, I want you to watch the horses.”

“I want to come too. I’m a squire. I can fight.”

“That’s why I want you to stay here. There may be outlaws in these woods. We dare not leave the horses unprotected.”

Podrick scuffed at a rock with his boot. “As you say.”

She shouldered through the blackberries and pulled at a rusted iron ring. The postern door resisted for a moment, then jerked open, its hinges screaming protest. The sound made the hairs on the back of Brienne’s neck stand up. She drew her sword. Even in mail and boiled leather, she felt naked.

“Go on, m’lady,” urged Nimble Dick, behind her. “What are you waiting for? Old Crabb’s been dead a thousand years.”

What was she waiting for? Brienne told herself that she was being foolish. The sound was just the sea, echoing endlessly through the caverns beneath the castle, rising and falling with each wave. It did sound like whispering, though, and for a moment she could almost see the heads, sitting on their shelves and muttering to one another. “I should have used the sword” one of them was saying. “I should have used the magic sword.”

“Podrick,” said Brienne. “There’s a sword and scabbard wrapped up in my bedroll. Bring them here to me.”

“Yes, ser. My lady. I will.” The boy went running off.

“A sword?” Nimble Dick scratched behind his ear. “You got a sword in your hand. What do you need another for?”

“This one’s for you.” Brienne offered him the hilt.

“For true?” Crabb reached out hesitantly, as if the blade might bite him. “The mistrustful maid’s giving old Dick a sword?”

“You do know how to use one?”

“I’m a Crabb.” He snatched the longsword from her hand. “I got the same blood as old Ser Clarence.” He slashed the air and grinned at her. “It’s the sword that makes the lord, some say.”

When Podrick Payne returned, he held Oathkeeper as gingerly as if it were a child. Nimble Dick gave a whistle at the sight of the ornate scabbard with its row of lion’s heads, but grew quiet when she drew the blade and tried a cut. Even the sound of it is sharper than an ordinary sword. “With me,” she told Crabb. She slipped sideways through the postern, ducking her head to pass beneath the doorway’s arch.