Arya had just picked up a cup of ale and was about to take a sip. Since she was paying for the meal today, she felt she deserved to enjoy herself.
But Aegon suddenly leaned forward, making the battered wooden stool creak, and reached out to snatch the cup from her hand.
Arya's eyes widened. "What are you doing?"
Aegon set the cup on his side of the table, his tone even. "What business does a child have drinking? If you're thirsty, ask the tavern keeper for some water."
Arya curled her lip and was about to argue-she was thirteen already, just a little short. What hadn't she drunk while fleeing through the Riverlands?
But the conversation at the next table made them both pause.
"Hey, have you heard? That lion from the Westerlands wiped out House Templeton of Ninestars."
The words fell like a stone into still water.
Aegon and Arya stopped what they were doing in unspoken accord.
Arya pricked up her ears and pretended to eat the food on her plate, afraid to miss a single word.
"That's not all," another voice replied, with unmistakable fear. "I heard those butchers from the Westerlands didn't just kill the whole Templeton family and burn their castle. They looted and slaughtered their way through the villages and Small Towns belonging to Ninestars too, then burned everything to the ground."
"And the lords of the Vale just watched? They let those men from the Westerlands do whatever they pleased on our land?"
"Hmph. Don't you know how those noble lords think? What do they care whether common farmers like us live or die?"
"I heard that lion from the Westerlands brought a hundred thousand soldiers into the Vale of Arryn. What house would dare stick its neck out?"
"Who knows what