splashed across a streambed

“Before Robert was king. She met your father and his brothers at Harrenhal, during the year of the false spring.” “Oh.” Arya did not know what else to say. “Why did she jump in the sea, though?” “Her heart was broken.” Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid. She couldn’t say that to Ned, though, not about his own aunt. “Did someone break it?” He hesitated. “Perhaps it’s not my place…” “Tell me.” He looked at her uncomfortably water sports. “My aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal -” “That’s not so. He loved my lady mother.” “I’m sure he did, my lady, but -” “She was the only one he loved.” “He must have found that bastard under a cabbage leaf, then,” Gendry said behind them. Arya wished she had another crabapple to bounce off his face. “My father had honor,” she said angrily. “And we weren’t talking to you anyway. Why don’t you go back to Stoney Sept and ring that girl’s stupid bells?” Gendry ignored that. “At least your father raised his bastard, not like mine. I don’t even know my father’s name. Some smelly drunk, I’d wager, like the others my mother dragged home from the alehouse. Whenever she got mad at me, she’d say, ‘If your father was here, he’d beat you bloody’ That’s all I know of him.” He spat. “Well, if he was here now, might be I’d beat him bloody. But he’s dead, I figure, and your father’s dead too, so what does it matter who he lay with?” It mattered to Arya, though she could not have said why. Ned was trying to apologize for upsetting her, but she did not want to hear it. She pressed her heels into her horse and left them both. Anguy the Archer was riding a few yards ahead. When she caught up with him, she said, “Dornishmen lie, don’t they?” “They’re famous for it.” The bowman grinned. “Of course, they say the same of us marchers, so there you are. What’s the trouble now? Ned’s a good lad…” “He’s just a stupid liar.” Arya left the trail, leapt a rotten log and , ignoring the shouts of the outlaws behind her. They just want to tell me more lies. She thought about trying to get away from them, but there were too many and they knew these lands too well. What was the use of running if they caught you? It was Harwin who rode up beside her, in the end. “Where do you think you’re going, milady? You shouldn’t run off. There are wolves in these woods, and worse things.” “I’m not afraid,” she said reenex facial.. “