NO ONE
In the dark of her cell that night, she dreamed the wolf dream.
It was different than usual, fainter, more distant. It was the first time she'd had it in a fortnight, mayhaps more; time became a blur here, in the bowels of the House of Black and White. She had her eyes back, but there was not much to see. Just flames burning far away, like torches, yet if she walked down the serpentine corridor toward them, she would never come any closer. They would be always receding around the next corner, and eventually she would know that something was in the dark with her, and she would turn and run.
The waif told her that the something was only in her head. Memories given shape and form. "You call them," she said. "You make them. In your heart, you are still someone, for only someone can have ghosts. Who are you, child?"
And as always, the girl would answer, "No one." And the waif would call her a liar, and the lesson would be at an end for the day. Yet that was not the only lesson. She had learned to walk light and soft as a shadow, move only feet beyond a whole party of men and them never knowing she was there. She had learned how to change her face, in that room with the sharp red cut of the knife taking away her skin. And she was no longer anyone.
Except she must be.
The wolf dream began as it customarily did: her stalking with her pack brothers as a waning moon rose, padding among the trees and breathing the scents of blood and loam and spoor. The distant clash of manclaws was never far away, as always, but it was a dead deer they were feasting on tonight. Once or twice fire licked the distant horizon, and she had a girl's thought, wondered if there was something in the dark. But now the something was her. Wolf. Wargwoman. Northqueen. She ruled this realm in the forest, and her paws dug into the soft earth as she ran.
Little sister.
That voice was not part of her dream, nor part of the wolf's thought. It pulled her far enough from it so it was as if she had been caught halfway between one skin and another, the same pain as when the kindly man had first sliced off her face. The dark woods grew strangely distorted, and the wolf, sensing the tension, stopped and whined. No, she thought muzzily, aware of herself as a girl, dreaming on her small stone bed in her cell in the House of Black and White, in Braavos – and twinned with the awareness of herself as wolf in the forests on the Trident, in Westeros. And split between them, red eyes. Whether they belonged to man or woman or wolf, she could not say. All and none at once.
Little sister.
The voice did not belong to No One. That voice was Arya Stark's ghost. Something in the dark. Was it him in those corridors, was it him she'd been fleeing from?
No, she whispered. I'm faceless now, I don't have any brothers. Not you. No. You have to go away.
I have gone away, the voice answered. So far away. And so have you.
No, I'm still here. Yet it was a lie; the waif would have felt it in her face at once. Valar morghulis. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing. Death was death, the gift of Him of Many Faces. In her time here, she had learned that at least.
The voice was growing fainter now, as if it too was receding down that corridor, the corridor with the light at the end, the light she was always too frightened to reach. And then she was in the corridor, and yet still in the wood, and roots snarled her paws, and fragile mud broke underneath her weight, and cold water swirled around her fur as she galloped across the water. And mantalk on the far side, flares of torches –
"There! There she is! There's the murderous bitch! Get her!"
And she knew she had to run. But she was no longer in her wolf; she couldn't. She could only watch, helpless, a passenger to her own execution.
The wolf went onto her hind legs and snarled. The men raised their long curved tools, the ones that spat iron-tipped sticks. Bows. Arrows. The wolf and the girl both knew they could kill her. And pain, pain like nothing she'd ever known, as there was a whiz and a smack, as arrows pierced the thick fur and she writhed and growled and snapped in agony, nets thrown at her, claws still tearing as the hunters came down on her –
And the girl thrashed awake, screaming. "JON," she cried. "JON, FATHER, NYMERIA – RUN – NO, NO – "
So clear and vivid were the sensations of the dream that she could still feel the ache of arrows in her own flesh, see the wolf struggling in the dark waters of the Trident as the hunters bound her with nets. She can't die, she wouldn't. She was queen of the riverlands, she led a pack a hundred strong, and no mortal steel could slay her. But I left her.
The girl curled up on her uncomfortable bed, sniffling. She shouldn't; she was near a woman grown. She was still as skinny as a spear, and her face – her real one – was still too long and too solemn and her eyes too dour and grey, her hair straight and brown and unkempt. But she had curves where she had not before, and there were red blotches on her cheeks, just the thing to make her look less pretty than ever. Sansa was always the pretty one.
But No One had no father. No brothers. No sisters. No wolf.
She couldn't get the images out of her head. Nor forget that voice, calling to her. Red eyes. Ghost had red eyes.
And again the waif:
"Only someone can have ghosts. Who are you, child?"
"No one," she whispered to her thin flat pillow. "Valar morghulis." And tried to sleep again, but lay awake instead till dawn.
At breakfast the kindly man asked, "Why were you crying out last night, child?"
"I didn't cry out last night." Before, she would have chewed her lip, but now she did not. My face is my servant.
"A lie," the kindly man sighed. "The names you called. There were three."
There were three names before, too. She remembered those ones as well. Chiswyck. Weese. And Jaqen H'ghar. She had killed them, the same as she had killed the stableboy in King's Landing and the guard on the gate at Harrenhal, and the singer who had deserted from the Night's Watch and that old man who wrote the false bills of insurance. Except for Jaqen. I can kill the kindly man too, if I want.
The kindly man smiled. "You think too loudly," he told her. "You must learn to guard them as closely as your words. There are men who may look in your eyes and read your feelings, who will draw them out and use them against you. The red priests may see you in their flames. Who are you?"
"No one."
"And still you lie." The kindly man peeled an egg and took a bite. "Child, if you will continue farther in the House of Black and White, you must stop dreaming these wolf dreams. You must forget everything. To be only a tool of Him of Many Faces, you must have no soul, no heart. You forsake all your yesterdays and any dream of tomorrows. What happens beyond these walls is no longer your concern. Stop it. Stop your heart."
How do I do that? She had drunk a potion, and it had stolen her sight, until she drank another, and it returned. Would she drink another poison, and freeze her heart?
"No," said the kindly man, answering her thought. "No poison can do that for you. No one but you can kill your loves and your hates. You do not have to do this, child. You are twelve, near thirteen. Soon you will flower. Soon you will be a woman. It is life you can bring to this world, not death. Even for Arya of House Stark, there must come a time when revenge is not the only dish served at the lord's table. And besides, you will never be free of who you are. You want the gift of the Many-Faced God, but you want only to give it to those whom you hate, have done you wrong. How does that prayer of yours go?"
Ser Gregor, the girl thought. Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei. "I do not remember."
"You lie. And poorly." The kindly man plucked a bunch of grapes from a bowl. "You have been Cat of the Canals, who sells Brusco's oysters and mussels. You have been Blind Beth the beggar girl, yet these are only acts, only masks you change like the mummers. Beneath you are always Arya."
"No, I'm not."
"Then prove it." The kindly man bit into the grape. "It has come time in your training that you must do something of great. . . importance. There is a certain man who has come to this house and prayed for the death of a certain other. You must do this thing."
"I already did. I killed that old man who wrote the bad scrips."
"Child," said the kindly man. "Did you breathe yesterday? Did you eat? You did. Must you do these things again today?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"That is what it is to be in the service of the Many-Faced God. Can you do this, Arya of House Stark?"
"Yes, I can."
"Just so. Then you will."
Arya hesitated. "Who is this man?"
"Someone has prayed for his death. Perhaps he has prayed for it himself."
"Is it someone I know?"
"Who do you know, child?"
I know lots of people. I know Brusco and Brea and Talea and Captain Terys and his sons, and Pynto who let me beg from him, and the merchants of Ragman's Harbor and Merry and the whores of the dockside. I know my family who is dead, and my brother Jon on the Wall, and Hot Pie and Gendry. It would have been good to see Gendry's stupid face again. She'd hit him with her sword and call him stubborn. She wondered if he was still a smith for the Brotherhood, under the hollow hill. They'd made him a knight, too.
The kindly man was still waiting for an answer.
"I know no one," she said.
He smiled. "Then it is no one whom you know."
"Is he important?"
"Every man is important in this house. Every life. Every death."
"What is his name?"
"Only a sound, child. Only a word. It lies upon the surface of his soul as does his face, or yours. It does not mean him."
He is not going to tell me who, the girl realized. It is no matter. There is no one in Braavos who means anything to me.
"When will I do this?" she asked.
"As soon as you are ready. You will wear a new face for it." The kindly man finished his breakfast. "Come."
"When will I return here?"
"Not until this thing is done." He led her across the chamber and opened a door, led her down a narrow staircase. The stone walls were damp, the air was close, and she found herself unconsciously rubbing at her arms, as if to chase off a thousand small insects. Down and down they went, past the cells where the acolytes were bringing those who had drunk at the fountain the previous night. Down to the room where the faces were kept.
"Sit," the kindly man told her. "Now, close your eyes."
She did. This had happened once before, and so she was more prepared for the prick and twist of the knife, the hot blood that slid down her cheeks and tasted coppery on her lips, the press of fingers into skin as if it was clay, and the new face being fashioned for her. "What does it look like?" she asked the kindly man.
"It is a good face for an innocent girl. It is sweet and pretty, but not so striking that one would look twice at it, or remember it long after glimpsing it in a crowd. It is a trustworthy face. Does it have a name?"
Cat, she almost said, before remembering that Cat was dead. Sansa. But Sansa was dead too. The Imp had killed her, or the queen. And she could not be no one, not outside this house.
"Lyanna," she said. "Her name is Lyanna."
"Your name is Lyanna, you mean. And that is a Westerosi name, a northern name. . . but though you speak far better than you did before, no one would mistake you for a native Braavosi. Who are you, child?"
"Lyanna Snow." Jon can't be hurt, or dead. I would know.
"So be it, then." The kindly man did not sound as if he altogether approved of the choice, but demurred no more. "Open your eyes. It is done."
The girl opened her eyes. Her face still felt tender, and stung slightly. When the kindly man handed her a looking glass, she saw blue eyes, a tawny braid, round cheeks with a light dusting of freckles. I do not look like a northman. Her father had always told her that she favored her aunt Lyanna, but this Lyanna was not that one. No more wolf dreams.
She rose to her feet. "Where am I going? Do I need things?"
"Not many. Now, listen closely. You must find a courtesan named the Summer Maid. She will take you to the man to whom you are to give the gift."
"A courtesan?" the girl repeated skeptically. The courtesans of Braavos were legendary: elegant, jeweled, mysterious figures flitting behind curtains, who rode carved swan boats down the canals at dusk, with gondoliers and fools and dancing girls all dressed in finery. The Black Pearl, the Merling Queen, the Poetess. . . they were all beautiful, all accomplished in two or three tongues, and played the high harp and wrote poems of courtly love and danced like a dream and adorned the arms of highborn lords and kings from across the entire world. Even one night with them was said to cost a man half his life's savings.
"Aye," the kindly man confirmed.
"And where will I find her?"
"There is a mummer's show today, at the Orb. She will be in attendance."
The girl nodded. She knew the Orb; it was a playhouse near the great Westerosi sept. They had a resident troupe of actors and a man who wrote their tragedies and their farces. The three things she had learned one day were about him. His name was Willym Vere, and he drank too much and was usually in debt to the Iron Bank. But he was a brilliant bard.
"And what should I do, when I find her there? What should I say?"
The kindly man gave her an enigmatic smile. "I do not know. What should you?"
And on that note, she took her leave of the House of Black and White.
Rarely for Braavos, the sun was shining when she stepped outside. Usually it was cloaked in fog, but today it was clear for miles, and she could see the Titan and the galleys in the harbor. A maze of canals threaded among the buildings, some of them as wide as any thoroughfare and filled with merchant gondolas, their owners poling up and down and crying their wares: silk and lace from Myr, ivory and glass from Volantis, wine and wheat from Norvos and jewels and spices from Lys. One or another of the Nine Free Cities were usually fighting, so it was always a wager as to what would be for sale at any given moment, but Lyanna Snow had not come to buy. She used one of her precious copper coins to take passage on a gondola going toward the sept. All the faiths of man were honored in Braavos; there was the sept of the Seven, the red temple of the priests of R'hllor, the House of Black and White, the Cult of Starry Wisdom, strange shrines for the gods of Summer Islanders and Qartheen, the harpies of the old Ghiscari cities. The only one she had never seen was a godswood, for there were no trees on Braavos. It was surrounded on all sides by water.
The old gods can't see me. The girl wondered if that would trouble Lyanna. She had come to have a queer affection for Braavos itself, over the course of her time here. It had been founded by slaves who had broken their chains, and to this day no man was permitted to be bought and sold for coin. A city for free men. She too was free. She could go anywhere she wanted. But she was going to the Orb.
The show had not yet started when she arrived. Lyanna paid another copper for a seat in the creaking gallery, then sat and watched the mummers strut and stretch and fart and jest and drink, rehearsing their lines and complaining about their costumes. One of them wanted to know where Vere was, and another snorted and said that he would be lying low for the time being, the Bank apparently being of a temperament to send a collector in regards to a loan the playwright had deferred three times already. If these farces did not put arses in the seats, apparently, Willym Vere was destined for some time as the Iron Bank's especial guest.
I wonder if it's him I'm supposed to kill. At first, Lyanna thought it quite likely, but the Iron Bank must certainly know that it was even harder to get money from a dead man than a live one, and besides, she did not think they needed the God of Many Faces to strike terror into the hearts of chronic debtors. The Braavosi might be a fair people, and by and large a kind one, but their memories were long, and they did not suffer thieves.
The audience began to filter in, and the mummers retired to prepare for the show. Lyanna kept a sharp eye out, but could not see anyone who might be the Summer Maid. There were urchins scrambling through the gallery and the rafters, selling hot pasties and sweetmeats and other delicacies, and she wanted to buy one, but scolded herself for thinking of wasting money on trivialities. Briefly she wondered if any of them were acolytes at the House of Black and White, masquerading under a false commoner's face as she had, learning secrets. Three things each time.
At last the Orb's doors were shut, the lamps around the stage were lit, and the master of the company strode forth to announce the evening's entertainment. It was both farce and tragedy, he said; a drama, a new form of performance. He begged that they would most wholeheartedly enjoy it on behalf of their dear friend Willym Vere, whose unavoidable commitments had kept him elsewhere tonight. As he said this, he glanced sidelong at a pair of tall, weedy gentlemen in mildly ludicrous hats, sitting in a private box, and Lyanna did as well. Envoys of the Iron Bank. They'll be looking for him.
And then she looked to the next box, and caught her breath.
The woman sitting there had to be the Summer Maid, even though Lyanna had not seen her come in. She had expected her to do so in the typical fashion of courtesans: the awed hush, the train of sweet girls and beautiful youths, flower petals scattered and perhaps a delicate touch of bells and cymbalos. Instead, this woman sat all but alone in her box, attended only by a handmaid veiled like a silent sister. She herself wore a fluttering scrap of silk over her mouth and nose, so only her eyes looked out above it, and a high-necked dress of some deep blue fabric. Her thick, honey-colored hair was plaited intricately in bands and jewels, and her hands were folded sedately in her lap.
I have to get to her somehow. Mayhaps at the interlude. Lyanna settled back in her seat and prepared to watch the drama.
It began intriguingly enough, with a girl washed up from a shipwreck and forced to dress as her twin brother. There were comic episodes as she struggled to maintain her disguise, but it took a darker turn as it was revealed that she was the daughter of the lion lord, and had run away from home rather than submit herself to a marriage with some blustering sot of a stormlord. But he needed her – or rather, her father, who bankrolled his less than savory activities – and sent his men after her, to catch her and drag her back. The first act ended with their marriage in the sept, a remarkable reproduction of the real one next door, and then he threw her on the floor and enthusiastically had down his quilted breeches in order to properly fornicate. The audience watched intently, torn between laughing and shouting ribald suggestions, and others turning their heads away at the look on the girl's face.
Lyanna bit her lip. I know this story.
At the interlude, she climbed down from the gallery and looked around for the Summer Maid, but the box was empty. The Iron Bank envoys were attempting to gain entrance to the rooms behind the stage, but a mustachioed Norvoshi bodyguard with an incomprehensible accent was busily thwarting them.
The Summer Maid reappeared just before the start of the second act, which took a furtherly darker turn. The lion's daughter and the blustering stormlord were trapped in an increasingly loveless marriage, while the twin brother – who, it turned out, had survived the shipwreck by murdering the captain – began to strut about, proclaiming what a cunning warrior he was and the number of captains he'd killed. His soliloquies were funny at first, but by the time the stormlord grew weary of his follies and set off to fetch his old friend, the frozen-faced wolf lord who took everything extremely literally, Lyanna did not know if she wanted to watch any more. I have to, though. I have to wait for the Summer Maid.
She found herself covering her eyes as the play moved into its third act. The lion's daughter became more and more bizarre and imperious, trying to get her horrible son to steal his father's authority and rule the stormlands. Her husband died, suspiciously. Her father and brother made nuisances of themselves. Everything she tried failed, with increasingly blacker humor, until the wolf lord announced to her that he had deduced the cause of her woe: she had been born a woman. For this outrage, she ordered his prompt execution.
Lyanna shut her eyes. It was just a play, she told herself. It wasn't the same as it had been. She heard the audience booing and hissing, and sat there trembling until the play ended, which it did more or less happily. The interfering lion lord met an undignified end, the lion's daughter was shut up in an asylum for the insane, and the wolf lord's heir, played with stolid uprightness by a square-jawed young Lysene, set to rights all the various upsets and drowned the horrible son in a barrel of malmsey. The only one who escaped was the twin brother, who found religion and went about asking the audience if they could spare a moment for the Seven, holding out his hat for donations.
The Braavosi applauded enthusiastically, agreed that it had been a fine drama indeed, and began to disperse into the chilly evening. Lyanna waited by the stairs to the courtesan's box, heart pounding; she still hadn't entirely recovered. At last, there was a whispering of silken skirts, and the Summer Maid descended, trailed by her servant. They were speaking, Lyanna realized to her considerable surprise, in the Common Tongue of Westeros.
". . . had known, my lady, I would not have suggested it – "
The Summer Maid laughed bitterly. "What are you apologizing for? Now that I know, I may go back tomorrow night, and the one after."
"What is it you see in it?"
The Summer Maid paused. "Revenge."
So do I, Lyanna thought. She followed them into the damp night. There were a pair of bravos loitering ostentatiously outside the Orb in their particolored bloomers, fingering the hilts of their slender swords and looking for challengers, but since the women wore no weapons, the bravos ignored them. Colored lanterns bobbed among the canals and bridges, and the sound of music and laughter drifted from a pleasure house. A wind had come up off the sea, and in the distance, the Titan's shoulders were cloaked in a falling fog.
Lyanna wondered where courtesans lived. Perhaps she would soon find out. As the Summer Maid and the servant started down to the pier to hire a gondola, she knew it was time. Without giving herself a chance to think further, she stepped out into their way.
The Summer Maid stopped. "Who are you, child?"
No one, she almost answered. Lyanna Snow, she could have said. Arya Stark, she could have said. But instead, without stopping to question where it had come from, she blurted out the first answer that came to her. "I'm the Wolf Maid."
"Ah." The Summer Maid regarded her for a long moment, and then, beneath the veil, she smiled. Her eyes crinkled, but the sadness in them remained as deep and silent as a pool in a cave. She reached out and touched Lyanna's chin, brushing one finger along it. "So you are."