Chapter 408: The Incorrect Use of an Ultimate Move
Crawling into bed?
Egger found it amusing. This was indeed a lethal weapon against men, but Arya seemed to have taken the term too literally, completely bungling the correct application. To have any real impact, one had to crawl into a man's bed when he was either drunk and delirious or already undressed and asleep. I haven't even gotten into bed yet and you've already burrowed in... it's quite difficult for me to fall into this trap.
He walked to the bedside, intending to fling the quilt aside and catch Arya, but he immediately spotted a neatly folded pile of clothes on the nightstand. Realizing the girl had actually stripped, he could no longer act recklessly. Instead, he carefully peeled back a corner of the quilt to reveal her head, then stood over her with hands on his hips, confronting her through the layers of fabric.
"A little over a year ago, in this very spot, you tried to sneak into my bed. What did I tell you then? 'If you do this again, don't call me Master anymore!'"
"Then I won't call you that; who cares?" Arya reached out and tugged the quilt back to block the draft, huddling beneath it with only her head showing. She stared back at Egger with a determined, unyielding gaze. "You said all those things to me today. If you don't sleep with me tonight, it proves those words were all lies... I'll go kill the Mad King's daughter tomorrow! If I fail once, I'll try twice; if twice fails, then three times. I'll succeed eventually!"
"What things did I say to you?" Egger asked, half-amused, counting on his fingers. "Let me help you remember: I promised that whenever you come to Queenscrown, I'll play with you; I'll find a way to help you break your engagement; and I guaranteed you'd be the first female member of the Night's Watch... right? Tell me, which of these requires me to sleep with you to prove I'm not lying?"
"You... you... you said you liked me!"
"I never said I liked you! Fine, your Master does like you, but do you express your liking for someone by sleeping with them?"
"Ugh, I don't care! I'm sleeping with you tonight regardless!" Arya knew she couldn't out-argue him, so she simply pulled the quilt back over her head.
This brat had truly forced Egger into a dilemma. The last time she occupied his bedroom, he had solved the problem by leaving the room to sleep in the one originally intended for her. But currently, the inner keep of Queenscrown had no spare rooms at all. Even Arya was sharing a room with Myrcella. Had Daenerys not come, the tower in the middle of the lake would have been the final fallback, but now... should he go to Melisandre's place for the night? Tsk. The Red Priestess had issued strict orders never to disturb her without prior communication.
"If you dare leave this room... I... I..." Remembering her failed attempt to occupy the bed last time, Arya quickly poked her head out to add a threat: "I'll go find the Mad King's daughter immediately—tonight!"
"You little brat!" Egger shot her a fierce look and made a motion as if to strike her, but the girl had already retreated under the covers, playing deaf to his words.
Having reorganized the security details, Egger wasn't actually worried that Arya could assassinate Daenerys. Leaving aside the fact that in this timeline she had never gone to the House of Black and White in Braavos to train as a Faceless Man, even if she had—through many deep conversations and subsequent idle chats with Melisandre—he had learned that while the Faceless Men were indeed a first-class assassin organization, that was the extent of it. Their reputation for being able to assassinate anyone in the world was largely inflated by mystery and hearsay. To high priests who had truly and systematically mastered magic, the skill of changing faces was merely a trivial trick, easily seen through.
Even if Arya were a Faceless Man, with Melisandre in Queenscrown and keeping an eye on Daenerys, she would have no chance of success.
Egger wasn't worried about the Queen's safety; he was worried about the little assassin herself. If Arya caused a scene and Daenerys discovered her presence in Queenscrown, how would things develop?
...
If you were the Dragon Queen, arriving with three dragons at the territory of the neutral Night's Watch, and then one of your greatest enemies' sisters—the sister of the ruler of the North—attempted to assassinate you in the night, would you be magnanimous enough to laugh it off and say, "She's just a child, forget it"?
Daenerys was no saint. She had conquered her way here through blood and fire, witnessing slaughter and death. The flaws in the Dragon's blood manifested as emotional instability that Egger could clearly sense after only two meetings. She was friendly to Egger because the Night's Watch was a neutral force worth courting, and because Egger shared her ambitions and possessed the means, ability, and capital that she admired. But Egger didn't dare be arrogant enough to believe that this friendliness was strong enough to protect someone else from the Dragon's Wrath—especially when Arya was the one in the wrong!
Even if he could eventually convince Daenerys to spare Arya for his sake, he would owe the Queen a massive favor.
And a favor from a Sovereign to a Subject is a debt that is rarely ever fully repaid.
"So, you're dead set on making your Master angry?" Egger said crossly. "Do your family guards, or Maeve, know where you are? Won't they be looking for you?"
"Those guys don't watch me every second. Maeve... Maeve knows I came to see you."
Egger let out a sigh of relief. He stood by the bed, staring at Lady Stark occupying his mattress for a moment, before finally making a decision. "Fine. I'll sleep with you tonight. You stay right here and don't move!"
With that, he turned and left the room. After finishing his nightly hygiene routine, he went straight to the supplies warehouse nearby, grabbed a new quilt, and returned to his bedroom.
Doing anything untoward to Arya was impossible, but sleeping with her in a literal sense was easy to achieve. Ignoring Arya's protests, Egger unceremoniously rolled her up in her quilt like a human spring roll, then took a length of cloth, wrapped it around, and tied a knot, binding the girl... Only then did he throw his new quilt onto the other side of the bed. Whistling a casual tune, he slowly removed his outer clothes and slid into the slightly cold but dry new bedding.
Arya struggled to poke her head out. "Hey! That's cheating! It doesn't count! Let me go!"
Now let's see how you go about causing trouble. Egger gave a smug chuckle, ignored her, and blew out the oil lamp. "Alright, go to sleep. We have to wake up early tomorrow."
"I can't breathe!"
"You've got plenty of breath to talk that loudly. Quiet. No more talking!" Egger wrapped himself in his own quilt, leaned against Arya's giant roll, and closed his eyes contentedly.
A year ago, Egger wouldn't have dared to share a room even in this formal sense... The reason was simple: being in a room together meant being together; who among the outsiders would believe he hadn't done anything?
But now, the path forward was planned, and the next master had been found. Even if the news of Arya spending the night in his room leaked in the future, the Starks would find themselves with a much larger problem: how to handle a powerful and restless Night's Watch that had declared for Daenerys Targaryen and even begun recruiting female soldiers. Their biggest headache would be trying to convince a happily-black-clad Arya to come home while dealing with an army of Crows marching south. They would have neither the time nor the opportunity to question him on how he dared share a room with their daughter, or why he held her reputation and honor in such low regard.
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