George R. R. Martin - A Feast for Crows

Contents

APPENDIX I:
THE KINGS AND THEIR COURTS

APPENDIX II:
OTHER HOUSES GREAT AND SMALL

APPENDIX III:
REBELS AND ROGUES
SMALLFOLK AND SWORN BROTHERS

APPENDIX IV:
BEYOND THE NARROW SEA

for Stephen Boucher
wizard of Windows, dragon of DOS
without whom this book would have
been written in crayon

Praise for

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
and
A Song of Ice and Fire

Mainstream readers... have a great treat ahead of them in Martin. A Feast for Crows is a fast-paced, emotionally complex, masterfully written adventure... Martins writing is as good as ever: his imaginaryplaces are as vivid and thoroughly imagined, his characters asconsistent and believable, his blood as wet and red. Newsday

George R. R. Martin has created the unlikely genre of the realpolitikfantasy novel. Complete with warring kings, noble heroes andbackroom dealings, its addictive reading and reflects our current worlda lot better than The Lord of the Rings. Rolling Stone

Whats A Song of Ice and Fire? Its the only fantasy series Id put ona level with J. R. R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. Its way better thanthe Harry Potter books and definitely not for children. Its a fantasyseries for hip, smart people, even those who dont read fantasy.Chicago Tribune

For a succinct summation of Martins medieval fantasy series, imaginea mix of the literary quality of T. H. Whites The Once and Future King,the in-your-face, you-are-there grittiness of a movie like Braveheart andthe sort of intricate character development found in a quality televisionshow like Lost... Vast, complex and undeniably entertaining... Oncein a while, there are books and writers that manage to elevate an entiregenre. Stephen King did so with horror. George R. R. Martins A Songof Ice and Fire series has taken fantasy out of thetwo-dimensional, black and white realm where it once happily existedand dragged it kicking and screaming into a land of believablecharacters, ambiguous situations, and bloody, sometimes uncertaindenouements. Denver Post

A Song of Ice and Fire is firmly at the top of the bestseller lists, probably because its the best fantasy series out there. Detroit Free Press

PROLOGUE

D ragons, said Mollander. He snatched a withered apple off the ground and tossed it hand to hand.

Throw the apple, urged Alleras the Sphinx. He slipped an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bowstring.

I should like to see a dragon. Roone was the youngest of them, a chunky boy still two years shy of manhood. I should like that very much.

And I should like to sleep with Roseys arms around me, Pate thought. He shifted restlessly on the bench. By the morrow the girl could well be his. I will take her far from Oldtown, across the narrow sea to one of the Free Cities. There were no maesters there, no one to accuse him.

He could hear Emmas laughter coming through a shuttered window overhead, mingled with the deeper voice of the man she was entertaining. She was the oldest of the serving wenches at the Quill and Tankard, forty if she was a day, but still pretty in a fleshy sort of way. Rosey was her daughter, fifteen and freshly flowered. Emma had decreed that Roseys maidenhead would cost a golden dragon. Pate had saved nine silver stags and a pot of copper stars and pennies, for all the good that would do him. He would have stood a better chance of hatching a real dragon than saving up enough coin to make a golden one.

You were born too late for dragons, lad, Armen the Acolyte told Roone. Armen wore a leather thong about his neck, strung with links of pewter, tin, lead, and copper, and like most acolytes he seemed to believe that novices had turnips growing from their shoulders in place of heads. The last one perished during the reign of King Aegon the Third.

The last dragon in Westeros, insisted Mollander.

Throw the apple, Alleras urged again. He was a comely youth, their Sphinx. All the serving wenches doted on him. Even Rosey would sometimes touch him on the arm when she brought him wine, and Pate had to gnash his teeth and pretend not to see.

The last dragon in Westeros was the last dragon, said Armen doggedly. That is well known.

The apple, Alleras said. Unless you mean to eat it.

Here. Dragging his clubfoot, Mollander took a short hop, whirled, and whipped the apple sidearm into the mists that hung above the Honeywine. If not for his foot, he would have been a knight like his father. He had the strength for it in those thick arms and broad shoulders. Far and fast the apple flew...

... but not as fast as the arrow that whistled after it, a yard-long shaft of golden wood fletched with scarlet feathers. Pate did not see the arrow catch the apple, but he heard it. A soft chunk echoed back across the river, followed by a splash.

Mollander whistled. You cored it. Sweet.

Not half as sweet as Rosey. Pate loved her hazel eyes and budding breasts, and the way she smiled every time she saw him. He loved the dimples in her cheeks. Sometimes she went barefoot as she served, to feel the grass beneath her feet. He loved that too. He loved the clean fresh smell of her, the way her hair curled behind her ears. He even loved her toes. One night shed let him rub her feet and play with them, and hed made up a funny tale for every toe to keep her giggling.

Perhaps he would do better to remain on this side of the narrow sea. He could buy a donkey with the coin hed saved, and he and Rosey could take turns riding it as they wandered Westeros. Ebrose might not think him worthy of the silver, but Pate knew how to set a bone and leech a fever. The smallfolk would be grateful for his help. If he could learn to cut hair and shave beards, he might even be a barber. That would be enough, he told himself, so long as I had Rosey. Rosey was all that he wanted in the world.

That had not always been so. Once he had dreamed of being a maester in a castle, in service to some open-handed lord who would honor him for his wisdom and bestow a fine white horse on him to thank him for his service. How high hed ride, how nobly, smiling down at the smallfolk when he passed them on the road...

One night in the Quill and Tankards common room, after his second tankard of fearsomely strong cider, Pate had boasted that he would not always be a novice. Too true, Lazy Leo had called out. Youll be a former novice, herding swine.

He drained the dregs of his tankard. The torchlit terrace of the Quill and Tankard was an island of light in a sea of mist this morning. Downriver, the distant beacon of the Hightower floated in the damp of night like a hazy orange moon, but the light did little to lift his spirits.

The alchemist should have come by now. Had it all been some cruel jape, or had something happened to the man? It would not have been the first time that good fortune had turned sour on Pate. He had once counted himself lucky to be chosen to help old Archmaester Walgrave with the ravens, never dreaming that before long he would also be fetching the mans meals, sweeping out his chambers, and dressing him every morning. Everyone said that Walgrave had forgotten more of ravencraft than most maesters ever knew, so Pate assumed a black iron link was the least that he could hope for, only to find that Walgrave could not grant him one. The old man remained an archmaester only by courtesy. As great a maester as once hed been, now his robes concealed soiled smallclothes oft as not, and half a year ago some acolytes found him weeping in the Library, unable to find his way back to his chambers. Maester Gormon sat below the iron mask in Walgraves place, the same Gormon who had once accused Pate of theft.