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took her silence to mean she was scared, or stupid, or deaf. “Look at that sword Lumpyhead’s got there,” Lommy said one morning as they made their plodding way past orchards and wheat fields. He’d been a dyer’s apprentice before he was caught stealing, and his arms were mottled green to the elbow. When he laughed he brayed like the donkeys they were riding. “Where’s a gutter rat like Lumpyhead get him a sword?”
    Arya chewed her lip sullenly. She could see the back of Yoren’s faded black cloak up ahead of the wagons, but she was determined not to go crying to him for help.
    “Maybe he’s a little squire,” Hot Pie put in. His mother had been a baker before she died, and he’d pushed her cart through the streets all day, shouting
“Hot pies! Hot pies!”
“Some lordy lord’s little squire boy, that’s it.”
    “He ain’t no squire, look at him. I bet that’s not even a real sword. I bet it’s just some play sword made of tin.”
    Arya hated them making fun of Needle. “It’s castle-forged steel, you stupid,” she snapped, turning in the saddle to glare at them, “and you better shut your mouth.”
    The orphan boys hooted. “Where’d you get a blade like that, Lumpyface?” Hot Pie wanted to know.
    “Lumpy
head,
” corrected Lommy. “He prob’ly stole it.”
    “I did
not
!” she shouted. Jon Snow had given her Needle. Maybe she had to let them call her Lumpyhead, but she wasn’t going to let them call Jon a thief.
    “If he stole it, we could take it off him,” said Hot Pie. “It’s not his anyhow. I could use me a sword like that.”
    Lommy egged him on. “Go on, take it off him, I dare you.”
    Hot Pie kicked his donkey, riding closer. “Hey, Lumpyface, you gimme that sword.” His hair was the color of straw, his fat face all sunburnt and peeling. “You don’t know how to use it.”
    Yes I do,
Arya could have said.
I killed a boy, a fat boy like you, I stabbed him in the belly and he died, and I’ll kill you too if you don’t let me alone.
Only she did not dare. Yoren didn’t know about the stableboy, but she was afraid of what he might do if he found out. Arya was pretty sure that some of the other men were killers too, the three in the manacles for sure, but the queen wasn’t looking for
them,
so it wasn’t the same.
    “Look at him,” brayed Lommy Greenhands. “I bet he’s going to cry now. You want to cry, Lumpyhead?”
    She had cried in her sleep the night before, dreaming of her father. Come morning, she’d woken red-eyed and dry, and could not have shed another tear if her life had hung on it.
    “He’s going to wet his pants,” Hot Pie suggested.
    “Leave him be,” said the boy with the shaggy black hair who rode behind them. Lommy had named
him
the Bull, on account of this horned helm he had that he polished all the time but never wore. Lommy didn’t dare mock the Bull. He was older, and big for his age, with a broad chest and strong-looking arms.
    “You better give Hot Pie the sword, Arry,” Lommy said. “Hot Pie wants it bad. He kicked a boy to death. He’ll do the same to you, I bet.”
    “I knocked him down and I kicked him in the balls, and I kept kicking him there until he was dead,” Hot Pie boasted. “I kicked him all to pieces. His balls were broke open and bloody and his cock turned black. You better gimme the sword.”
    Arya slid her practice sword from her belt. “You can have this one,” she told Hot Pie, not wanting to fight.
    “That’s just some stick.” He rode nearer and tried to reach over for Needle’s hilt.
    Arya made the stick whistle as she laid the wood across his donkey’s hindquarters. The animal
hawed
and bucked, dumping Hot Pie on the ground. She vaulted off her own donkey and poked him in the gut as he tried to get up and he sat back down with a grunt. Then she whacked him across the face and his nose made a
crack
like a branch breaking. Blood dribbled from his nostrils. When Hot Pie began to wail, Arya whirled