He could see the comet hanging above the Guards Hall and the Bell Tower, and farther back the First Keep, squat and round, its gargoyles black shapes against the bruised purple dusk. Once Bran had known every stone of those buildings, inside and out; he had climbed them all, scampering up walls as easily as other boys ran down stairs. Their rooftops had been his secret places, and the crows atop the broken tower his special friends.
他時時注意到高掛在守衛室、鐘塔以及更遠處首堡上空的彗星，圓形的首堡十分低矮，石像鬼黑色的身形襯著遠方紫紅的天幕。曾經，布蘭對這些建筑的里里外外、一磚一瓦都了若指掌，因為他全都爬過。他爬起墻來就像別的男孩跑樓梯那么輕松自如。過去，城樓的屋頂是他的秘密基地，殘塔頂的烏鴉是他的知心朋友。
And then he had fallen.
然而他卻摔下樓去。
Bran did not remember falling, yet they said he had, so he supposed it must be true. He had almost died. When he saw the weatherworn gargoyles atop the First Keep where it had happened, he got a queer tight feeling in his belly. And now he could not climb, nor walk nor run nor swordfight, and the dreams he'd dreamed of knighthood had soured in his head.
布蘭不記得自己墜樓，但他們都這么說，所以他想應該確有其事。他差點就沒命了呢。每當他見到意外發生的首堡塔頂那些歷經風吹雨打的石像鬼雕像，便覺腹部奇異的一緊。如今他不能攀爬、不能行走，、不能奔跑、不能練劍，曾經的騎士夢已經灰飛煙滅。
Summer had howled the day Bran had fallen, and for long after as he lay broken in his bed; Robb had told him so before he went away to war. Summer had mourned for him, and Shaggydog and Grey Wind had joined in his grief. And the night the bloody raven had brought word of their father's death, the wolves had known that too. Bran had been in the maester's turret with Rickon talking of the children of the forest when Summer and Shaggydog had drowned out Luwin with their howls.
羅柏離城出征以前，對布蘭說過：他墜樓那天，夏天長嚎不止，之后他臥病在床期間，也依舊嚎叫不息。夏天為他哀悼，毛毛狗和灰風齊聲加入悲鳴。而渾身浴血的信鴉捎來父親死訊的那天夜里，狼群彷佛也知道了。當時布蘭和瑞肯正在學士的塔樓上，討論森林之子的種種故事，夏天和毛毛狗卻突然仰天長嚎，淹沒了魯溫的聲音。
評論
打印
