It was the biggest lake she had ever seen, with no hint of a far shore. She saw a rambling inn to her left, built out over the water on heavy wooden pilings. To her right, a long pier jutted into the lake, and there were other docks farther east, wooden fingers reaching out from the town. But the only boat in view was an upside-down rowboat abandoned on the rocks beneath the inn, its bottom thoroughly rotted out. “They’re gone,” Arya said, dejected. What would they do now?  “There’s an inn,” Lommy said, when the others rode up. “Do you think they left any food? Or ale?”  “Let’s go see,” Hot Pie suggested.  “Never you mind about no inn,” snapped Woth. “Yoren said we’re to find a boat.”  “They took the boats.” Somehow Arya knew it was true; they could search the whole town, and they’d find no more than the upside-down rowboat. Despondent, she climbed off her horse and knelt by the lake. The water lapped softly around her legs. A few lantern bugs were coming out, their little lights blinking on and off. The green water was warm as tears, but there was no salt in it. It tasted of summer and mud and growing things. Arya plunged her face down into it to wash off the dust and dirt and sweat of the day. When she leaned back the trickles ran down the back of her neck and under her collar. They felt good. She wished she could take off her clothes and swim, gliding through the warm water like an skinny pink otter. Maybe she could swim all the way to Winterfell.  Woth was shouting at her to help search, so she did, peering into boathouses and sheds while her horse grazed along the shore. They found some sails, some nails, buckets of tar gone hard, and a mother cat with a litter of new-born kittens. But no boats.  The town was as dark as any forest when Yoren and the others reappeared. “Tower’s empty,” he said. “Lord’s gone off to fight maybe, or to get his smallfolk to safety, no telling. Not a horse or pig left in town, but we’ll eat. Saw a goose running loose, and some chickens, and there’s good fish in the Gods Eye.”  “The boats are gone,” Arya reported.  “We could patch the bottom of that rowboat,” said Koss.  “Might do for four o’ us,” Yoren said.  “There’s nails,” Lommy pointed out. “And there’s trees all around. We could build us all boats.”  Yoren spat. “You know anything ‘bout boat-building, dyer’s boy?” Lommy looked blank.  “A raft,” suggested Gendry. “Anyone can build a raft, and long poles for pushing.”  Yoren looked thoughtful. “Lake’s too deep to pole across, but if we stayed to the shallows near shore... it’d mean leaving the wagons. Might be that’s best. I’ll sleep on it.”  “Can we stay at the inn?” Lommy asked.  “We’ll stay in the holdfast, with the gates barred,” the old man said. “I like the feel o’ stone walls about me when I sleep.”   Arya could not keep quiet. “We shouldn’t stay here,” she blurted. “The people didn’t. They all ran off, even their lord.”  “Arry’s scared,” Lommy announced, braying laughter.  “I’m not,” she snapped back, “but they were.”  “Smart boy,” said Yoren. “Thing is, the folks who lived here were at war, like it or no. We’re not. Night’s Watch takes no part, so no man’s our enemy.”  And no man’s our friend, she thought, but this time she held her tongue. Lommy and the rest were looking at her, and she did not want to seem craven in front of them.  The holdfast gates were studded with iron nails. Within, they found a pair of iron bars the size of saplings, with post holes in the ground and metal brackets on the gate. When they slotted the bars through the brackets, they made a huge X brace. It was no Red Keep, Yoren announced when they’d explored the holdfast top to bottom, but it was better than most, and should do for a night well enough. The walls were rough............