ASOIAF: Is Ser Shadrich really Howland Reed in disguise?

I do not believe that Ser Shadrich is anything more than what he pretends to be: a hedge knight secretly looking for Sansa in order to get Varys’ promised bag of gold. I also think that Howland Reed is cooler hiding out in the Neck, sending poison darts to anybody around, than he is wandering around the Realm pretending to be other people.

Besides, Shadrich has red hair and neither Jojen nor Meera, his children look like that. I know that doesn’t count for much, but something tells me that GRRM would drop more of a little hint if it were Reed.

However, regarding the other knights that offer their services to Littlefinger in Alayne II in A Feast for Crows.

One of them is Ser Shadrich, the Mad Mouse who Brienne earlier meets and who tells her that he is looking for Sansa.

The other two are described as

• “an elegant young knight whose thick blonde mane cascaded well past his shoulders”
• "a burly fellow with thick salt-and-pepper beard, a red nose bulbous with broken veins, and gnarled hands as large as hands.”

It’s not much to go on but I believe the second of the above MIGHT be the Elder Brother from the Quiet Isle.

Check out the description from Brienne VI, A Feast for Crows:

The Elder Brother was not what Brienne had expected. He could hardly be called elder, for a start; whereas the brothers weeding in the garden had had the stooped shoulders and bent backs of old men, he stood straight and tall, and moved with the vigor of a man in the prime of his years. Nor did he have the gentle, kindly face she expected of a healer. His head was large and square, his eyes shrewd, his nose veined and red. Though he wore a tonsure, his scalp was as stubbly as his heavy jaw.

Later in the same chapter, he rests “his big hands on his knees.”

It’s fairly scanty evidence, I know. It’s definitely not enough to be sure.

But if it was the Elder Brother, could the Hound be nearby, in hiding, trying to find Sansa?

I think it is plausible, by which I mean, I think it would be a logical progression for Sansa’s (and Sandor’s) storyline.

Written January 30th