It seemed a thousand years ago that Catelyn Stark had carried her infant son out of Riverrun, crossingthe Tumblestone in a small boat to begin their journey north to Winterfell. And it was across theTumblestone that they came home now, though the boy wore plate and mail in place of swaddlingclothes.
Robb sat in the bow with Grey Wind, his hand resting on his direwolf’s head as the rowers pulledat their oars. Theon Greyjoy was with him. Her uncle Brynden would come behind in the second boat,with the Greatjon and Lord Karstark.
Catelyn took a place toward the stern. They shot down the Tumblestone, letting the strong currentpush them past the looming Wheel Tower. The splash and rumble of the great waterwheel within wasa sound from her girlhood that brought a sad smile to Catelyn’s face. From the sandstone walls of thecastle, soldiers and servants shouted down her name, and Robb’s, and “Winterfell!” From everyrampart waved the banner of House Tully: a leaping trout, silver, against a rippling blue-and-red field.
It was a stirring sight, yet it did not lift her heart. She wondered if indeed her heart would ever liftagain. Oh, Ned …Below the Wheel Tower, they made a wide turn and knifed through the churning water. The menput their backs into it. The wide arch of the Water Gate came into view, and she heard the creak ofheavy chains as the great iron portcullis was winched upward. It rose slowly as they approached, andCatelyn saw that the lower half of it was red with rust. The bottom foot dripped brown mud on themas they passed underneath, the barbed spikes mere inches above their heads. Catelyn gazed up at thebars and wondered how deep the rust went and how well the portcullis would stand up to a ram andwhether it ought to be replaced. Thoughts like that were seldom far from her mind these days.
They passed beneath the arch and under the walls, moving from sunlight to shadow and back intosunlight. Boats large and small were tied up all around them, secured to iron rings set in the stone.
Her father’s guards waited on the water stair with her brother. Ser Edmure Tully was a stocky youngman with a shaggy head of auburn hair and a fiery beard. His breastplate was scratched and dentedfrom battle, his blue-and-red cloak stained by blood and smoke. At his side stood the Lord TytosBlackwood, a hard pike of a man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper whiskers and a hook nose. Hisbright yellow armor was inlaid with jet in elaborate vine-and-leaf patterns, and a cloak sewn fromraven feathers draped his thin shoulders. It had been Lord Tytos who led the sortie that plucked herbrother from the Lannister camp.
“Bring them in,” Ser Edmure commanded. Three men scrambled down the stairs knee-deep in thewater and pulled the boat close with long hooks. When Grey Wind bounded out, one of them droppedhis pole and lurched back, stumbling and sitting down abruptly in the river. The others laughed, andthe man got a sheepish look on his face. Theon Greyjoy vaulted over the side of the boat and liftedCatelyn by the waist, setting her on a dry step above him as water lapped around his boots.
Edmure came down the steps to embrace her. “Sweet sister,” he murmured hoarsely. He had deepblue eyes and a mouth made for smiles, but he was not smiling now. He looked worn and tired,battered by battle and haggard from strain. His neck was bandaged where he had taken a wound.
Catelyn hugged him fiercely.
“Your grief is mine, Cat,” he said when they broke apart. “When we heard about LordEddard … the Lannisters will pay, I swear it, you will have your vengeance.”
“Will that bring Ned back to me?” she said sharply. The wound was still too fresh for softerwords. She could not think about Ned now. She would not. It would not do. She had to be strong. “Allthat will keep. I must see Father.”
rwords. She could not think about Ned now. She would not. It would not do. She had to be strong. “Allthat will keep. I must see Father.”
“He awaits you in his solar,” Edmure said.
“Lord Hoster is bedridden, my lady,” her father’s steward explained. When had that good mangrown so old and grey? “He instructed me to bring you to him at once.”
“I’ll take her.” Edmure escorted her up the water stair and across the lower bailey, where PetyrBaelish and Brandon Stark had once crossed swords for her favor. The massive sandstone walls of thekeep loomed above them. As they pushed through a door between two guardsmen in fish-crest helms,she asked, “How bad is he?” dreading the answer even as she said the words.
Edmure’s look was somber. “He will not be with us long, the maesters say. The pain is … constant,and grievous.”
A blind rage filled her, a rage at all the world; at her brother Edmure and her sister Lysa, at theLannisters, at the maesters, at Ned and her father and the monstrous gods who would take them bothaway from her. “You should have told me,” she said. “You should have sent word as soon as youknew.”
“He forbade it. He did not want his enemies to know that he was dying. With the realm sotroubled, he feared that if the Lannisters suspected how frail he was …”
“…they might attack?” Catelyn finished, hard. It was your doing, yours, a voice whispered insideher. If you had not taken it upon yourself to seize the dwarf …They climbed the spiral stair in silence.
The keep was three-sided, like Riverrun itself, and Lord Hoster’s solar was triangular as well, witha stone balcony that jutted out to the east like the prow of some great sandstone ship. From there thelord of the castle could look down on his walls and battlements, and beyond, to where the waters met.
They had moved her father’s bed out onto the balcony. “He likes to sit in the sun and watch therivers,” Edmure explained. “Father, see who I’ve brought. Cat has come to see you …”
Hoster Tully had always been a big man; tall and broad in his youth, portly as he grew older. Nowhe seemed shrunken, the muscle and meat melted off his bones. Even his face sagged. The last timeCatelyn had seen him, his hair and beard had been brown, well streaked with grey. Now they hadgone white as snow.
His eyes opened to the sound of Edmure’s voice. “Little cat,” he murmured in a voice thin andwispy and wracked by pain. “My little cat.” A tremulous smile touched his face as his hand gropedfor hers. “I watched for you …”
“I shall leave you to talk,” her brother said, kissing their lord father gently on the brow before hewithdrew.
Catelyn knelt and took her father’s hand in hers. It was a big hand, but fleshless now, the bonesmoving loosely under the skin, all the strength gone from it. “You should have told me,” she said. “Arider, a raven …”
“Riders are taken, questioned,” he answered. “Ravens are brought down …” A spasm of pain tookhim, and his fingers clutched hers hard. “The crabs are in my belly … pinching, always pinching. Dayand night. They have fierce claws, the crabs. Maester Vyman makes me dreamwine, milk of thepoppy … I sleep a lot … but I wanted to be awake to see you, when you came. I was afraid … whenthe Lannisters took your brother, the camps all around us … I was afraid I would go, before I couldsee you again … I was afraid …”
“I’m here, Father,” she said. “With Robb, my son. He’ll want to see you too.”
“Your boy,” he whispered. “He had my eyes, I remember …”
“He did, and does. And we’ve brought you Jaime Lannister, in irons. Riverrun is free again,Father.”
Lord Hoster smiled. “I saw. Last night, when it began, I told them … had to see. They carried me tothe gatehouse … watched from the battlements. Ah, that was beautiful … the torches came in a wave,I could hear the cries floating across the river … sweet cries … when that siege tower went up,gods … would have died then, and glad, if only I could have seen you children first. Was it your boywho did it? Was it your Robb?”
“Yes,” Catelyn said, fiercely proud. “It was Robb … and Brynden. Your brother is here as well,my lord.”
“Him.” Her father’s voice was a faint whisper. “The Blackfish … came back? From the Vale?” r’s voice was a faint whisper. “The Blackfish … came back? From the Vale?”
“Yes.”
“And Lysa?” A cool wind moved through his thin white hair. “Gods be good, your sister … didshe come as well?”
He sounded so full of hope and yearning that it was hard to tell the truth. “No. I’m sorry …”
“Oh.” His face fell, and some light went out of his eyes. “I’d hoped … I would have liked to seeher, before …”
“She’s with her son, in the Eyrie.”
Lord Hoster gave a weary nod. “Lord Robert now, poor Arryn’s gone … I remember … why didshe not come with you?”
“She is frightened, my lord. In the Eyrie she feels safe.” She kissed his wrinkled brow. “Robb willbe waiting. Will you see him? And Brynden?”
“Your son,” he whispered. “Yes. Cat’s child … he had my eyes, I remember. When he was born.
Bring him … yes.”
“And your brother?”
Her father glanced out over the rivers. “Blackfish,” he said. “Has he wed yet? Taken some … girlto wife?”
Even on his deathbed, Catelyn thought sadly. “He has not wed. You know that, Father. Nor will heever.”
“I told him … commanded him. Marry! I was his lord. He knows. My right, to make his match. Agood match. A Redwyne. Old House. Sweet girl, pretty … freckles … Bethany, yes. Poor child. Stillwaiting. Yes. Still …”
“Bethany Redwyne wed Lord Rowan years ago,” Catelyn reminded him. “She has three childrenby him.”
“Even so,” Lord Hoster muttered. “Even so. Spit on the girl. The Redwynes. Spit on me. His lord,his brother … that Blackfish. I had other offers. Lord Bracken’s girl. Walder Frey … any of three, hesaid … Has he wed? Anyone? Anyone?”
“No one,” Catelyn said, “yet he has come many leagues to see you, fighting his way back toRiverrun. I would not be here now, if Ser Brynden had not helped us.”
“He was ever a warrior,” her father husked. “That he could do. Knight of the Gate, yes.” Heleaned back and closed his eyes, inutterably weary. “Send him. Later. I’ll sleep now. Too sick to fight.
Send him up later, the Blackfish …”
Catelyn kissed him gently, smoothed his hair, and left him there in the shade of his keep, with hisrivers flowing beneath. He was asleep before she left the solar.
When she returned to the lower bailey, Ser Brynden Tully stood on the water stairs with wet boots,talking with the captain of Riverrun’s guards. He came to her at once. “Is he—?”
“Dying,” she said. “As we feared.”
Her uncle’s craggy face showed his pain plain. He ran his fingers through his thick grey hair. “Willhe see me?”
She nodded. “He says he is too sick to fight.”
Brynden Blackfish chuckled. “I am too old a soldier to believe that. Hoster will be chiding meabout the Redwyne girl even as we light his funeral pyre, damn his bones.”
Catelyn smiled, knowing it was true. “I do not see Robb.”
“He went with Greyjoy to the hall, I believe.”
Theon Greyjoy was seated on a bench in Riverrun’s Great Hall, enjoying a horn of ale and regalingher father’s garrison with an account of the slaughter in the Whispering Wood. “Some tried to flee,but we’d pinched the valley shut at both ends, and we rode out of the darkness with sword and lance.
The Lannisters must have thought the Others themselves were on them when that wolf of Robb’s gotin among them. I saw him tear one man’s arm from his shoulder, and their horses went mad at thescent of him. I couldn’t tell you how many men were thrown—”
“Theon,” she interrupted, “where might I find my son?”
“Lord Robb went to visit the godswood, my lady.”
It was what Ned would have done. He is his father’s son as much as mine, I must remember. Oh,gods, Ned … She found Robb beneath the green canopy of leaves, surrounded by tall redwoods and great oldelms, kneeling before the heart tree, a slender weirwood with a face more sad than fierce. Hislongsword was before him, the point thrust in the earth, his gloved hands clasped around the hilt.
Around him others knelt: Greatjon Umber, Rickard Karstark, Maege Mormont, Galbart Glover, andmore. Even Tytos Blackwood was among them, the great raven cloak fanned out behind him. Theseare the ones who keep the old gods, she realized. She asked herself what gods she kept these days,and could not find an answer.
delms, kneeling before the heart tree, a slender weirwood with a face more sad than fierce. Hislongsword was before him, the point thrust in the earth, his gloved hands clasped around the hilt.
Around him others knelt: Greatjon Umber, Rickard Karstark, Maege Mormont, Galbart Glover, andmore. Even Tytos Blackwood was among them, the great raven cloak fanned out behind him. Theseare the ones who keep the old gods, she realized. She asked herself what gods she kept these days,and could not find an answer.
It would not do to disturb them at their prayers. The gods must have their due … even cruel godswho would take Ned from her, and her lord father as well. So Catelyn waited. The river wind movedthrough the high branches, and she could see the Wheel Tower to her right, ivy crawling up its side.
As she stood there, all the memories came flooding back to her. Her father had taught her to rideamongst these trees, and that was the elm that Edmure had fallen from when he broke his arm, andover there, beneath that bower, she and Lysa had played at kissing with Petyr.
She had not thought of that in years. How young they all had been—she no older than Sansa, Lysayounger than Arya, and Petyr younger still, yet eager. The girls had traded him between them, seriousand giggling by turns. It came back to her so vividly she could almost feel his sweaty fingers on hershoulders and taste the mint on his breath. There was always mint growing in the godswood, andPetyr had liked to chew it. He had been such a bold little boy, always in trouble. “He tried to put histongue in my mouth,” Catelyn had confessed to her sister afterward, when they were alone. “He didwith me too,” Lysa had whispered, shy and breathless. “I liked it.”
Robb got to his feet slowly and sheathed his sword, and Catelyn found herself wondering whetherher son had ever kissed a girl in the godswood. Surely he must have. She had seen Jeyne Poole givinghim moist-eyed glances, and some of the serving girls, even ones as old as eighteen … he had riddenin battle and killed men with a sword, surely he had been kissed. There were tears in her eyes. Shewiped them away angrily.
“Mother,” Robb said when he saw her standing there. “We must call a council. There are things tobe decided.”
“Your grandfather would like to see you,” she said. “Robb, he’s very sick.”
“Ser Edmure told me. I am sorry, Mother … for Lord Hoster and for you. Yet first we must meet.
We’ve had word from the south. Renly Baratheon has claimed his brother’s crown.”
“Renly?” she said, shocked. “I had thought, surely it would be Lord Stannis …”
“So did we all, my lady,” Galbart Glover said.
The war council convened in the Great Hall, at four long trestle tables arranged in a broken square.
Lord Hoster was too weak to attend, asleep on his balcony, dreaming of the sun on the rivers of hisyouth. Edmure sat in the high seat of the Tullys, with Brynden Blackfish at his side, and his father’sbannermen arrayed to right and left and along the side tables. Word of the victory at Riverrun hadspread to the fugitive lords of the Trident, drawing them back. Karyl Vance came in, a lord now, hisfather dead beneath the Golden Tooth. Ser Marq Piper was with him, and they brought a Darry, SerRaymun’s son, a lad no older than Bran. Lord Jonos Bracken arrived from the ruins of Stone Hedge,glowering and blustering, and took a seat as far from Tytos Blackwood as the tables would permit.
The northern lords sat opposite, with Catelyn and Robb facing her brother across the tables. Theywere fewer. The Greatjon sat at Robb’s left hand, and then Theon Greyjoy; Galbart Glover and LadyMormont were to the right of Catelyn. Lord Rickard Karstark, gaunt and hollow-eyed in his grief,took his seat like a man in a nightmare, his long beard uncombed and unwashed. He had left two sonsdead in the Whispering Wood, and there was no word of the third, his eldest, who had led theKarstark spears against Tywin Lannister on the Green Fork.
The arguing raged on late into the night. Each lord had a right to speak, and speak they did … andshout, and curse, and reason, and cajole, and jest, and bargain, and slam tankards on the table, andthreaten, and walk out, and return sullen or smiling. Catelyn sat and listened to it all.
Roose Bolton had re-formed the battered remnants of their other host at the mouth of the causeway.
Ser Helman Tallhart and Walder Frey still held the Twins. Lord Tywin’s army had crossed theTrident, and was making for Harrenhal. And there were two kings in the realm. Two kings, and noagreement.
Many of the lords bannermen wanted to march on Harrenhal at once, to meet Lord Tywin and endLannister power for all time. Young, hot-tempered Marq Piper urged a strike west at Casterly Rock instead. Still others counseled patience. Riverrun sat athwart the Lannister supply lines, JasonMallister pointed out; let them bide their time, denying Lord Tywin fresh levies and provisions whilethey strengthened their defenses and rested their weary troops. Lord Blackwood would have none ofit. They should finish the work they began in the Whispering Wood. March to Harrenhal and bringRoose Bolton’s army down as well. What Blackwood urged, Bracken opposed, as ever; Lord JonosBracken rose to insist they ought pledge their fealty to King Renly, and move south to join their mightto his.
fit. They should finish the work they began in the Whispering Wood. March to Harrenhal and bringRoose Bolton’s army down as well. What Blackwood urged, Bracken opposed, as ever; Lord JonosBracken rose to insist they ought pledge their fealty to King Renly, and move south to join their mightto his.
“Renly is not the king,” Robb said. It was the first time her son had spoken. Like his father, heknew how to listen.
“You cannot mean to hold to Joffrey, my lord,” Galbart Glover said. “He put your father todeath.”
“That makes him evil,” Robb replied. “I do not know that it makes Renly king. Joffrey is stillRobert’s eldest trueborn son, so the throne is rightfully his by all the laws of the realm. Were he todie, and I mean to see that he does, he has a younger brother. Tommen is next in line after Joffrey.”
“Tommen is no less a Lannister,” Ser Marq Piper snapped.
“As you say,” said Robb, troubled. “Yet if neither one is king, still, how could it be Lord Renly?
He’s Robert’s younger brother. Bran can’t be Lord of Winterfell before me, and Renly can’t be kingbefore Lord Stannis.”
Lady Mormont agreed. “Lord Stannis has the better claim.”
“Renly is crowned,” said Marq Piper. “Highgarden and Storm’s End support his claim, and theDornishmen will not be laggardly. If Winterfell and Riverrun add their strength to his, he will havefive of the seven great houses behind him. Six, if the Arryns bestir themselves! Six against the Rock!
My lords, within the year, we will have all their heads on pikes, the queen and the boy king, LordTywin, the Imp, the Kingslayer, Ser Kevan, all of them! That is what we shall win if we join withKing Renly. What does Lord Stannis have against that, that we should cast it all aside?”
“The right,” said Robb stubbornly. Catelyn thought he sounded eerily like his father as he said it.
“So you mean us to declare for Stannis?” asked Edmure.
“I don’t know,” said Robb. “I prayed to know what to do, but the gods did not answer. TheLannisters killed my father for a traitor, and we know that was a lie, but if Joffrey is the lawful kingand we fight against him, we will be traitors.”
“My lord father would urge caution,” aged Ser Stevron said, with the weaselly smile of a Frey.
“Wait, let these two kings play their game of thrones. When they are done fighting, we can bend ourknees to the victor, or oppose him, as we choose. With Renly arming, likely Lord Tywin wouldwelcome a truce … and the safe return of his son. Noble lords, allow me to go to him at Harrenhaland arrange good terms and ransoms …”
A roar of outrage drowned out his voice. “Craven!” the Greatjon thundered. “Begging for a trucewill make us seem weak,” declared Lady Mormont. “Ransoms be damned, we must not give up theKingslayer,” shouted Rickard Karstark.
“Why not a peace?” Catelyn asked.
The lords looked at her, but it was Robb’s eyes she felt, his and his alone. “My lady, they murderedmy lord father, your husband,” he said grimly. He unsheathed his longsword and laid it on the tablebefore him, the bright steel on the rough wood. “This is the only peace I have for Lannisters.”
The Greatjon bellowed his approval, and other men added their voices, shouting and drawingswords and pounding their fists on the table. Catelyn waited until they had quieted. “My lords,” shesaid then, “Lord Eddard was your liege, but I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think Ilove him any less than you?” Her voice almost broke with her grief, but Catelyn took a long breathand steadied herself. “Robb, if that sword could bring him back, I should never let you sheathe it untilNed stood at my side once more … but he is gone, and a hundred Whispering Woods will not changethat. Ned is gone, and Daryn Hornwood, and Lord Karstark’s valiant sons, and many other good menbesides, and none of them will return to us. Must we have more deaths still?”
“You are a woman, my lady,” the Greatjon rumbled in his deep voice. “Women do not understandthese things.”
“You are the gentle sex,” said Lord Karstark, with the lines of grief fresh on his face. “A man hasa need for vengeance.”
“Give me Cersei Lannister, Lord Karstark, and you would see how gentle a woman can be,”
Catelyn replied. “Perhaps I do not understand tactics and strategy … but I understand futility. Wewent to war when Lannister armies were ravaging the riverlands, and Ned was a prisoner, falselyaccused of treason. We fought to defend ourselves, and to win my lord’s freedom.
but I understand futility. Wewent to war when Lannister armies were ravaging the riverlands, and Ned was a prisoner, falselyaccused of treason. We fought to defend ourselves, and to win my lord’s freedom.
“Well, the one is done, and the other forever beyond our reach. I will mourn for Ned until the endof my days, but I must think of the living. I want my daughters back, and the queen holds them still. IfI must trade our four Lannisters for their two Starks, I will call that a bargain and thank the gods. Iwant you safe, Robb, ruling at Winterfell from your father’s seat. I want you to live your life, to kiss agirl and wed a woman and father a son. I want to write an end to this. I want to go home, my lords,and weep for my husband.”
The hall was very quiet when Catelyn finished speaking.
“Peace,” said her uncle Brynden. “Peace is sweet, my lady … but on what terms? It is no goodhammering your sword into a plowshare if you must forge it again on the morrow.”
“What did Torrhen and my Eddard die for, if I am to return to Karhold with nothing but theirbones?” asked Rickard Karstark.
“Aye,” said Lord Bracken. “Gregor Clegane laid waste to my fields, slaughtered my smallfolk,and left Stone Hedge a smoking ruin. Am I now to bend the knee to the ones who sent him? Whathave we fought for, if we are to put all back as it was before?”
Lord Blackwood agreed, to Catelyn’s surprise and dismay. “And if we do make peace with KingJoffrey, are we not then traitors to King Renly? What if the stag should prevail against the lion, wherewould that leave us?”
“Whatever you may decide for yourselves, I shall never call a Lannister my king,” declared MarqPiper.
“Nor I!” yelled the little Darry boy. “I never will!”
Again the shouting began. Catelyn sat despairing. She had come so close, she thought. They hadalmost listened, almost … but the moment was gone. There would be no peace, no chance to heal, nosafety. She looked at her son, watched him as he listened to the lords debate, frowning, troubled, yetwedded to his war. He had pledged himself to marry a daughter of Walder Frey, but she saw his truebride plain before her now: the sword he had laid on the table.
Catelyn was thinking of her girls, wondering if she would ever see them again, when the Greatjonlurched to his feet.
“MY LORDS!” he shouted, his voice booming off the rafters. “Here is what I say to these twokings!” He spat. “Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule overme and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dorne? What do they know of the Wall or thewolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their gods are wrong. The Others take theLannisters too, I’ve had a bellyful of them.” He reached back over his shoulder and drew his immensetwo-handed greatsword. “Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, andthe dragons are all dead!” He pointed at Robb with the blade. “There sits the only king I mean to bowmy knee to, m’lords,” he thundered. “The King in the North!”
And he knelt, and laid his sword at her son’s feet.
“I’ll have peace on those terms,” Lord Karstark said. “They can keep their red castle and their ironchair as well.” He eased his longsword from its scabbard. “The King in the North!” he said, kneelingbeside the Greatjon.
Maege Mormont stood. “The King of Winter!” she declared, and laid her spiked mace beside theswords. And the river lords were rising too, Blackwood and Bracken and Mallister, houses who hadnever been ruled from Winterfell, yet Catelyn watched them rise and draw their blades, bending theirknees and shouting the old words that had not been heard in the realm for more than three hundredyears, since Aegon the Dragon had come to make the Seven Kingdoms one … yet now were heardagain, ringing from the timbers of her father’s hall:
“The King in the North!”
“The King in the North!”
“THE KING IN THE NORTH
Robb sat in the bow with Grey Wind, his hand resting on his direwolf’s head as the rowers pulledat their oars. Theon Greyjoy was with him. Her uncle Brynden would come behind in the second boat,with the Greatjon and Lord Karstark.
Catelyn took a place toward the stern. They shot down the Tumblestone, letting the strong currentpush them past the looming Wheel Tower. The splash and rumble of the great waterwheel within wasa sound from her girlhood that brought a sad smile to Catelyn’s face. From the sandstone walls of thecastle, soldiers and servants shouted down her name, and Robb’s, and “Winterfell!” From everyrampart waved the banner of House Tully: a leaping trout, silver, against a rippling blue-and-red field.
It was a stirring sight, yet it did not lift her heart. She wondered if indeed her heart would ever liftagain. Oh, Ned …Below the Wheel Tower, they made a wide turn and knifed through the churning water. The menput their backs into it. The wide arch of the Water Gate came into view, and she heard the creak ofheavy chains as the great iron portcullis was winched upward. It rose slowly as they approached, andCatelyn saw that the lower half of it was red with rust. The bottom foot dripped brown mud on themas they passed underneath, the barbed spikes mere inches above their heads. Catelyn gazed up at thebars and wondered how deep the rust went and how well the portcullis would stand up to a ram andwhether it ought to be replaced. Thoughts like that were seldom far from her mind these days.
They passed beneath the arch and under the walls, moving from sunlight to shadow and back intosunlight. Boats large and small were tied up all around them, secured to iron rings set in the stone.
Her father’s guards waited on the water stair with her brother. Ser Edmure Tully was a stocky youngman with a shaggy head of auburn hair and a fiery beard. His breastplate was scratched and dentedfrom battle, his blue-and-red cloak stained by blood and smoke. At his side stood the Lord TytosBlackwood, a hard pike of a man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper whiskers and a hook nose. Hisbright yellow armor was inlaid with jet in elaborate vine-and-leaf patterns, and a cloak sewn fromraven feathers draped his thin shoulders. It had been Lord Tytos who led the sortie that plucked herbrother from the Lannister camp.
“Bring them in,” Ser Edmure commanded. Three men scrambled down the stairs knee-deep in thewater and pulled the boat close with long hooks. When Grey Wind bounded out, one of them droppedhis pole and lurched back, stumbling and sitting down abruptly in the river. The others laughed, andthe man got a sheepish look on his face. Theon Greyjoy vaulted over the side of the boat and liftedCatelyn by the waist, setting her on a dry step above him as water lapped around his boots.
Edmure came down the steps to embrace her. “Sweet sister,” he murmured hoarsely. He had deepblue eyes and a mouth made for smiles, but he was not smiling now. He looked worn and tired,battered by battle and haggard from strain. His neck was bandaged where he had taken a wound.
Catelyn hugged him fiercely.
“Your grief is mine, Cat,” he said when they broke apart. “When we heard about LordEddard … the Lannisters will pay, I swear it, you will have your vengeance.”
“Will that bring Ned back to me?” she said sharply. The wound was still too fresh for softerwords. She could not think about Ned now. She would not. It would not do. She had to be strong. “Allthat will keep. I must see Father.”
rwords. She could not think about Ned now. She would not. It would not do. She had to be strong. “Allthat will keep. I must see Father.”
“He awaits you in his solar,” Edmure said.
“Lord Hoster is bedridden, my lady,” her father’s steward explained. When had that good mangrown so old and grey? “He instructed me to bring you to him at once.”
“I’ll take her.” Edmure escorted her up the water stair and across the lower bailey, where PetyrBaelish and Brandon Stark had once crossed swords for her favor. The massive sandstone walls of thekeep loomed above them. As they pushed through a door between two guardsmen in fish-crest helms,she asked, “How bad is he?” dreading the answer even as she said the words.
Edmure’s look was somber. “He will not be with us long, the maesters say. The pain is … constant,and grievous.”
A blind rage filled her, a rage at all the world; at her brother Edmure and her sister Lysa, at theLannisters, at the maesters, at Ned and her father and the monstrous gods who would take them bothaway from her. “You should have told me,” she said. “You should have sent word as soon as youknew.”
“He forbade it. He did not want his enemies to know that he was dying. With the realm sotroubled, he feared that if the Lannisters suspected how frail he was …”
“…they might attack?” Catelyn finished, hard. It was your doing, yours, a voice whispered insideher. If you had not taken it upon yourself to seize the dwarf …They climbed the spiral stair in silence.
The keep was three-sided, like Riverrun itself, and Lord Hoster’s solar was triangular as well, witha stone balcony that jutted out to the east like the prow of some great sandstone ship. From there thelord of the castle could look down on his walls and battlements, and beyond, to where the waters met.
They had moved her father’s bed out onto the balcony. “He likes to sit in the sun and watch therivers,” Edmure explained. “Father, see who I’ve brought. Cat has come to see you …”
Hoster Tully had always been a big man; tall and broad in his youth, portly as he grew older. Nowhe seemed shrunken, the muscle and meat melted off his bones. Even his face sagged. The last timeCatelyn had seen him, his hair and beard had been brown, well streaked with grey. Now they hadgone white as snow.
His eyes opened to the sound of Edmure’s voice. “Little cat,” he murmured in a voice thin andwispy and wracked by pain. “My little cat.” A tremulous smile touched his face as his hand gropedfor hers. “I watched for you …”
“I shall leave you to talk,” her brother said, kissing their lord father gently on the brow before hewithdrew.
Catelyn knelt and took her father’s hand in hers. It was a big hand, but fleshless now, the bonesmoving loosely under the skin, all the strength gone from it. “You should have told me,” she said. “Arider, a raven …”
“Riders are taken, questioned,” he answered. “Ravens are brought down …” A spasm of pain tookhim, and his fingers clutched hers hard. “The crabs are in my belly … pinching, always pinching. Dayand night. They have fierce claws, the crabs. Maester Vyman makes me dreamwine, milk of thepoppy … I sleep a lot … but I wanted to be awake to see you, when you came. I was afraid … whenthe Lannisters took your brother, the camps all around us … I was afraid I would go, before I couldsee you again … I was afraid …”
“I’m here, Father,” she said. “With Robb, my son. He’ll want to see you too.”
“Your boy,” he whispered. “He had my eyes, I remember …”
“He did, and does. And we’ve brought you Jaime Lannister, in irons. Riverrun is free again,Father.”
Lord Hoster smiled. “I saw. Last night, when it began, I told them … had to see. They carried me tothe gatehouse … watched from the battlements. Ah, that was beautiful … the torches came in a wave,I could hear the cries floating across the river … sweet cries … when that siege tower went up,gods … would have died then, and glad, if only I could have seen you children first. Was it your boywho did it? Was it your Robb?”
“Yes,” Catelyn said, fiercely proud. “It was Robb … and Brynden. Your brother is here as well,my lord.”
“Him.” Her father’s voice was a faint whisper. “The Blackfish … came back? From the Vale?” r’s voice was a faint whisper. “The Blackfish … came back? From the Vale?”
“Yes.”
“And Lysa?” A cool wind moved through his thin white hair. “Gods be good, your sister … didshe come as well?”
He sounded so full of hope and yearning that it was hard to tell the truth. “No. I’m sorry …”
“Oh.” His face fell, and some light went out of his eyes. “I’d hoped … I would have liked to seeher, before …”
“She’s with her son, in the Eyrie.”
Lord Hoster gave a weary nod. “Lord Robert now, poor Arryn’s gone … I remember … why didshe not come with you?”
“She is frightened, my lord. In the Eyrie she feels safe.” She kissed his wrinkled brow. “Robb willbe waiting. Will you see him? And Brynden?”
“Your son,” he whispered. “Yes. Cat’s child … he had my eyes, I remember. When he was born.
Bring him … yes.”
“And your brother?”
Her father glanced out over the rivers. “Blackfish,” he said. “Has he wed yet? Taken some … girlto wife?”
Even on his deathbed, Catelyn thought sadly. “He has not wed. You know that, Father. Nor will heever.”
“I told him … commanded him. Marry! I was his lord. He knows. My right, to make his match. Agood match. A Redwyne. Old House. Sweet girl, pretty … freckles … Bethany, yes. Poor child. Stillwaiting. Yes. Still …”
“Bethany Redwyne wed Lord Rowan years ago,” Catelyn reminded him. “She has three childrenby him.”
“Even so,” Lord Hoster muttered. “Even so. Spit on the girl. The Redwynes. Spit on me. His lord,his brother … that Blackfish. I had other offers. Lord Bracken’s girl. Walder Frey … any of three, hesaid … Has he wed? Anyone? Anyone?”
“No one,” Catelyn said, “yet he has come many leagues to see you, fighting his way back toRiverrun. I would not be here now, if Ser Brynden had not helped us.”
“He was ever a warrior,” her father husked. “That he could do. Knight of the Gate, yes.” Heleaned back and closed his eyes, inutterably weary. “Send him. Later. I’ll sleep now. Too sick to fight.
Send him up later, the Blackfish …”
Catelyn kissed him gently, smoothed his hair, and left him there in the shade of his keep, with hisrivers flowing beneath. He was asleep before she left the solar.
When she returned to the lower bailey, Ser Brynden Tully stood on the water stairs with wet boots,talking with the captain of Riverrun’s guards. He came to her at once. “Is he—?”
“Dying,” she said. “As we feared.”
Her uncle’s craggy face showed his pain plain. He ran his fingers through his thick grey hair. “Willhe see me?”
She nodded. “He says he is too sick to fight.”
Brynden Blackfish chuckled. “I am too old a soldier to believe that. Hoster will be chiding meabout the Redwyne girl even as we light his funeral pyre, damn his bones.”
Catelyn smiled, knowing it was true. “I do not see Robb.”
“He went with Greyjoy to the hall, I believe.”
Theon Greyjoy was seated on a bench in Riverrun’s Great Hall, enjoying a horn of ale and regalingher father’s garrison with an account of the slaughter in the Whispering Wood. “Some tried to flee,but we’d pinched the valley shut at both ends, and we rode out of the darkness with sword and lance.
The Lannisters must have thought the Others themselves were on them when that wolf of Robb’s gotin among them. I saw him tear one man’s arm from his shoulder, and their horses went mad at thescent of him. I couldn’t tell you how many men were thrown—”
“Theon,” she interrupted, “where might I find my son?”
“Lord Robb went to visit the godswood, my lady.”
It was what Ned would have done. He is his father’s son as much as mine, I must remember. Oh,gods, Ned … She found Robb beneath the green canopy of leaves, surrounded by tall redwoods and great oldelms, kneeling before the heart tree, a slender weirwood with a face more sad than fierce. Hislongsword was before him, the point thrust in the earth, his gloved hands clasped around the hilt.
Around him others knelt: Greatjon Umber, Rickard Karstark, Maege Mormont, Galbart Glover, andmore. Even Tytos Blackwood was among them, the great raven cloak fanned out behind him. Theseare the ones who keep the old gods, she realized. She asked herself what gods she kept these days,and could not find an answer.
delms, kneeling before the heart tree, a slender weirwood with a face more sad than fierce. Hislongsword was before him, the point thrust in the earth, his gloved hands clasped around the hilt.
Around him others knelt: Greatjon Umber, Rickard Karstark, Maege Mormont, Galbart Glover, andmore. Even Tytos Blackwood was among them, the great raven cloak fanned out behind him. Theseare the ones who keep the old gods, she realized. She asked herself what gods she kept these days,and could not find an answer.
It would not do to disturb them at their prayers. The gods must have their due … even cruel godswho would take Ned from her, and her lord father as well. So Catelyn waited. The river wind movedthrough the high branches, and she could see the Wheel Tower to her right, ivy crawling up its side.
As she stood there, all the memories came flooding back to her. Her father had taught her to rideamongst these trees, and that was the elm that Edmure had fallen from when he broke his arm, andover there, beneath that bower, she and Lysa had played at kissing with Petyr.
She had not thought of that in years. How young they all had been—she no older than Sansa, Lysayounger than Arya, and Petyr younger still, yet eager. The girls had traded him between them, seriousand giggling by turns. It came back to her so vividly she could almost feel his sweaty fingers on hershoulders and taste the mint on his breath. There was always mint growing in the godswood, andPetyr had liked to chew it. He had been such a bold little boy, always in trouble. “He tried to put histongue in my mouth,” Catelyn had confessed to her sister afterward, when they were alone. “He didwith me too,” Lysa had whispered, shy and breathless. “I liked it.”
Robb got to his feet slowly and sheathed his sword, and Catelyn found herself wondering whetherher son had ever kissed a girl in the godswood. Surely he must have. She had seen Jeyne Poole givinghim moist-eyed glances, and some of the serving girls, even ones as old as eighteen … he had riddenin battle and killed men with a sword, surely he had been kissed. There were tears in her eyes. Shewiped them away angrily.
“Mother,” Robb said when he saw her standing there. “We must call a council. There are things tobe decided.”
“Your grandfather would like to see you,” she said. “Robb, he’s very sick.”
“Ser Edmure told me. I am sorry, Mother … for Lord Hoster and for you. Yet first we must meet.
We’ve had word from the south. Renly Baratheon has claimed his brother’s crown.”
“Renly?” she said, shocked. “I had thought, surely it would be Lord Stannis …”
“So did we all, my lady,” Galbart Glover said.
The war council convened in the Great Hall, at four long trestle tables arranged in a broken square.
Lord Hoster was too weak to attend, asleep on his balcony, dreaming of the sun on the rivers of hisyouth. Edmure sat in the high seat of the Tullys, with Brynden Blackfish at his side, and his father’sbannermen arrayed to right and left and along the side tables. Word of the victory at Riverrun hadspread to the fugitive lords of the Trident, drawing them back. Karyl Vance came in, a lord now, hisfather dead beneath the Golden Tooth. Ser Marq Piper was with him, and they brought a Darry, SerRaymun’s son, a lad no older than Bran. Lord Jonos Bracken arrived from the ruins of Stone Hedge,glowering and blustering, and took a seat as far from Tytos Blackwood as the tables would permit.
The northern lords sat opposite, with Catelyn and Robb facing her brother across the tables. Theywere fewer. The Greatjon sat at Robb’s left hand, and then Theon Greyjoy; Galbart Glover and LadyMormont were to the right of Catelyn. Lord Rickard Karstark, gaunt and hollow-eyed in his grief,took his seat like a man in a nightmare, his long beard uncombed and unwashed. He had left two sonsdead in the Whispering Wood, and there was no word of the third, his eldest, who had led theKarstark spears against Tywin Lannister on the Green Fork.
The arguing raged on late into the night. Each lord had a right to speak, and speak they did … andshout, and curse, and reason, and cajole, and jest, and bargain, and slam tankards on the table, andthreaten, and walk out, and return sullen or smiling. Catelyn sat and listened to it all.
Roose Bolton had re-formed the battered remnants of their other host at the mouth of the causeway.
Ser Helman Tallhart and Walder Frey still held the Twins. Lord Tywin’s army had crossed theTrident, and was making for Harrenhal. And there were two kings in the realm. Two kings, and noagreement.
Many of the lords bannermen wanted to march on Harrenhal at once, to meet Lord Tywin and endLannister power for all time. Young, hot-tempered Marq Piper urged a strike west at Casterly Rock instead. Still others counseled patience. Riverrun sat athwart the Lannister supply lines, JasonMallister pointed out; let them bide their time, denying Lord Tywin fresh levies and provisions whilethey strengthened their defenses and rested their weary troops. Lord Blackwood would have none ofit. They should finish the work they began in the Whispering Wood. March to Harrenhal and bringRoose Bolton’s army down as well. What Blackwood urged, Bracken opposed, as ever; Lord JonosBracken rose to insist they ought pledge their fealty to King Renly, and move south to join their mightto his.
fit. They should finish the work they began in the Whispering Wood. March to Harrenhal and bringRoose Bolton’s army down as well. What Blackwood urged, Bracken opposed, as ever; Lord JonosBracken rose to insist they ought pledge their fealty to King Renly, and move south to join their mightto his.
“Renly is not the king,” Robb said. It was the first time her son had spoken. Like his father, heknew how to listen.
“You cannot mean to hold to Joffrey, my lord,” Galbart Glover said. “He put your father todeath.”
“That makes him evil,” Robb replied. “I do not know that it makes Renly king. Joffrey is stillRobert’s eldest trueborn son, so the throne is rightfully his by all the laws of the realm. Were he todie, and I mean to see that he does, he has a younger brother. Tommen is next in line after Joffrey.”
“Tommen is no less a Lannister,” Ser Marq Piper snapped.
“As you say,” said Robb, troubled. “Yet if neither one is king, still, how could it be Lord Renly?
He’s Robert’s younger brother. Bran can’t be Lord of Winterfell before me, and Renly can’t be kingbefore Lord Stannis.”
Lady Mormont agreed. “Lord Stannis has the better claim.”
“Renly is crowned,” said Marq Piper. “Highgarden and Storm’s End support his claim, and theDornishmen will not be laggardly. If Winterfell and Riverrun add their strength to his, he will havefive of the seven great houses behind him. Six, if the Arryns bestir themselves! Six against the Rock!
My lords, within the year, we will have all their heads on pikes, the queen and the boy king, LordTywin, the Imp, the Kingslayer, Ser Kevan, all of them! That is what we shall win if we join withKing Renly. What does Lord Stannis have against that, that we should cast it all aside?”
“The right,” said Robb stubbornly. Catelyn thought he sounded eerily like his father as he said it.
“So you mean us to declare for Stannis?” asked Edmure.
“I don’t know,” said Robb. “I prayed to know what to do, but the gods did not answer. TheLannisters killed my father for a traitor, and we know that was a lie, but if Joffrey is the lawful kingand we fight against him, we will be traitors.”
“My lord father would urge caution,” aged Ser Stevron said, with the weaselly smile of a Frey.
“Wait, let these two kings play their game of thrones. When they are done fighting, we can bend ourknees to the victor, or oppose him, as we choose. With Renly arming, likely Lord Tywin wouldwelcome a truce … and the safe return of his son. Noble lords, allow me to go to him at Harrenhaland arrange good terms and ransoms …”
A roar of outrage drowned out his voice. “Craven!” the Greatjon thundered. “Begging for a trucewill make us seem weak,” declared Lady Mormont. “Ransoms be damned, we must not give up theKingslayer,” shouted Rickard Karstark.
“Why not a peace?” Catelyn asked.
The lords looked at her, but it was Robb’s eyes she felt, his and his alone. “My lady, they murderedmy lord father, your husband,” he said grimly. He unsheathed his longsword and laid it on the tablebefore him, the bright steel on the rough wood. “This is the only peace I have for Lannisters.”
The Greatjon bellowed his approval, and other men added their voices, shouting and drawingswords and pounding their fists on the table. Catelyn waited until they had quieted. “My lords,” shesaid then, “Lord Eddard was your liege, but I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think Ilove him any less than you?” Her voice almost broke with her grief, but Catelyn took a long breathand steadied herself. “Robb, if that sword could bring him back, I should never let you sheathe it untilNed stood at my side once more … but he is gone, and a hundred Whispering Woods will not changethat. Ned is gone, and Daryn Hornwood, and Lord Karstark’s valiant sons, and many other good menbesides, and none of them will return to us. Must we have more deaths still?”
“You are a woman, my lady,” the Greatjon rumbled in his deep voice. “Women do not understandthese things.”
“You are the gentle sex,” said Lord Karstark, with the lines of grief fresh on his face. “A man hasa need for vengeance.”
“Give me Cersei Lannister, Lord Karstark, and you would see how gentle a woman can be,”
Catelyn replied. “Perhaps I do not understand tactics and strategy … but I understand futility. Wewent to war when Lannister armies were ravaging the riverlands, and Ned was a prisoner, falselyaccused of treason. We fought to defend ourselves, and to win my lord’s freedom.
but I understand futility. Wewent to war when Lannister armies were ravaging the riverlands, and Ned was a prisoner, falselyaccused of treason. We fought to defend ourselves, and to win my lord’s freedom.
“Well, the one is done, and the other forever beyond our reach. I will mourn for Ned until the endof my days, but I must think of the living. I want my daughters back, and the queen holds them still. IfI must trade our four Lannisters for their two Starks, I will call that a bargain and thank the gods. Iwant you safe, Robb, ruling at Winterfell from your father’s seat. I want you to live your life, to kiss agirl and wed a woman and father a son. I want to write an end to this. I want to go home, my lords,and weep for my husband.”
The hall was very quiet when Catelyn finished speaking.
“Peace,” said her uncle Brynden. “Peace is sweet, my lady … but on what terms? It is no goodhammering your sword into a plowshare if you must forge it again on the morrow.”
“What did Torrhen and my Eddard die for, if I am to return to Karhold with nothing but theirbones?” asked Rickard Karstark.
“Aye,” said Lord Bracken. “Gregor Clegane laid waste to my fields, slaughtered my smallfolk,and left Stone Hedge a smoking ruin. Am I now to bend the knee to the ones who sent him? Whathave we fought for, if we are to put all back as it was before?”
Lord Blackwood agreed, to Catelyn’s surprise and dismay. “And if we do make peace with KingJoffrey, are we not then traitors to King Renly? What if the stag should prevail against the lion, wherewould that leave us?”
“Whatever you may decide for yourselves, I shall never call a Lannister my king,” declared MarqPiper.
“Nor I!” yelled the little Darry boy. “I never will!”
Again the shouting began. Catelyn sat despairing. She had come so close, she thought. They hadalmost listened, almost … but the moment was gone. There would be no peace, no chance to heal, nosafety. She looked at her son, watched him as he listened to the lords debate, frowning, troubled, yetwedded to his war. He had pledged himself to marry a daughter of Walder Frey, but she saw his truebride plain before her now: the sword he had laid on the table.
Catelyn was thinking of her girls, wondering if she would ever see them again, when the Greatjonlurched to his feet.
“MY LORDS!” he shouted, his voice booming off the rafters. “Here is what I say to these twokings!” He spat. “Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule overme and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dorne? What do they know of the Wall or thewolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their gods are wrong. The Others take theLannisters too, I’ve had a bellyful of them.” He reached back over his shoulder and drew his immensetwo-handed greatsword. “Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, andthe dragons are all dead!” He pointed at Robb with the blade. “There sits the only king I mean to bowmy knee to, m’lords,” he thundered. “The King in the North!”
And he knelt, and laid his sword at her son’s feet.
“I’ll have peace on those terms,” Lord Karstark said. “They can keep their red castle and their ironchair as well.” He eased his longsword from its scabbard. “The King in the North!” he said, kneelingbeside the Greatjon.
Maege Mormont stood. “The King of Winter!” she declared, and laid her spiked mace beside theswords. And the river lords were rising too, Blackwood and Bracken and Mallister, houses who hadnever been ruled from Winterfell, yet Catelyn watched them rise and draw their blades, bending theirknees and shouting the old words that had not been heard in the realm for more than three hundredyears, since Aegon the Dragon had come to make the Seven Kingdoms one … yet now were heardagain, ringing from the timbers of her father’s hall:
“The King in the North!”
“The King in the North!”
“THE KING IN THE NORTH