They ate the fried bread and half the sausages. Podrick Payne washed his down with wine-flavored water whilst Brienne nursed a cup of watered wine and wondered why she’d come. Hyle Hunt was no true knight. His honest face was just a mummer’s mask.
She was getting up to go when Ser Hyle arrived. “My lady. Podrick.” He glanced at the cups and plates and the half-eaten sausages cooling in a puddle of grease, and said, “Gods, I hope you did not eat the food here.”
“What we ate is no concern of yours,” Brienne said. “Did you find your cousin? What did he tell you?”
“Sandor Clegane was last seen in Saltpans, the day of the raid. Afterward he rode west, along the Trident.”
She frowned. “The Trident is a long river.”
“Aye, but I don’t think our dog will have wandered too far from its mouth. Westeros has lost its charm for him, it would seem. At Saltpans he was looking for a
“If he is with Dondarrion.?”
“He’s not. Alyn is certain of that. Dondarrion’s men are looking for him too. They have put out word that they mean to hang him for what he did at Saltpans. They had no part of that. Lord Randyll is putting it about that they did in hopes of turning the commons against Beric and his brotherhood. He will never take the lightning lord so long as the smallfolk are protecting him. And there’s this other band, led by this woman Stoneheart. Lord Beric’s lover, according to one tale. Supposedly she was hanged by the Freys, but Dondarrion kissed her and brought her back to life, and now she cannot die, no more than he can.” Brienne considered the map. “If Clegane was last seen at Saltpans, that would be the place to find his trail.”
“There is no one left at Saltpans but an old knight hiding in his castle, Alyn said.”
“Still, it would be a place to start.”
“There’s a man,” Ser Hyle said. “A septon. He came in through my gate the day before you turned up. Meribald, his name is. River-born and river-bred and he’s served here all his life. He’s departing on the morrow to make his circuit, and he always calls at Saltpans. We should go with him.”
Brienne looked up sharply.
“I am going with you.”
“You’re not.”
“Well, I’m going with Septon Meribald to Saltpans. You and Podrick can go wherever you bloody well like.”
“Did Lord Randyll command you to follow me again?”
“He commanded me to stay away from you. Lord Randyll is of the view that you might benefit from a good hard raping.”
“Then why would you come with me?”
“It was that, or return to gate duty.”
“If your lord commanded—”
“He is no longer my lord.”
That took her aback. “You left his service?”
“His lordship informed me that he had no further need of my sword, or my insolence. It amounts to the same thing. Henceforth I shall enjoy the adventuresome life of a hedge knight. though if we do find Sansa Stark, I imagine we will be well rewarded.”
“I don’t recall that I did.”
“That is why you will not be coming with me.”
They left the next morning, as the sun was coming up.
It was a queer procession: Ser Hyle on a chestnut courser and Brienne on her tall grey mare, Podrick Payne astride his swayback stot, and Septon Meribald walking beside them with his quarterstaff, leading a small donkey and a large dog. The donkey carried such a heavy load that Brienne was half afraid its back would break. “Food for the poor and hungry of the riverlands,” Septon Meribald told them at the gates of Maidenpool. “Seeds and nuts and dried fruit, oaten porridge, flour, barley bread, three wheels of yellow cheese from the inn by the Fool’s Gate, salt cod for me, salt mutton for Dog. oh, and salt. Onions, carrots, turnips, two sacks of beans, four of barley, and nine of oranges. I have a weakness for the orange, I confess. I got these from a sailor, and I fear they will be the last I’ll taste till spring.”
