Long before the first pale fingers of light pried apart
Bran’s shutters, his eyes were open.
There were guests in Winterfell, visitors come for the harvest
feast. This morning they would be tilting at quintains in the yard.
Once that prospect would have filled him with excitement, but that
was before.
Not now. The Walders would break lances with the squires of Lord
Manderly’s escort, but Bran would have no part of it. He must
play the prince in his father’s solar. “Listen, and it
may be that you will learn something of what lordship is all
about,” Maester Luwin had said.
Bran had never asked to be a prince. It was knighthood he had
always dreamed of; bright armor and streaming banners, lance and
sword, a warhorse between his legs. Why must he waste his days
listening to old men speak of things he only half understood?
Because you’re broken, a voice inside reminded him. A lord on
his cushioned chair might be crippled—the Walders said their
grandfather was so feeble he had to be carried everywhere in a
litter—but not a knight on his destrier. Besides, it was his duty.
“You are your brother’s heir and the Stark in
Winterfell,” Ser Rodrik said, reminding him of how Robb used
to sit with their lord father when his bannermen came to see
him.
Lord Wyman Manderly had arrived from White Harbor two days past,
traveling by barge and litter, as he was too fat to sit a horse.
With him had come a long tail of retainers: knights, squires,
lesser lords and ladies, heralds, musicians, even a juggler, all
aglitter with banners and surcoats in what seemed half a hundred
colors. Bran had welcomed them to Winterfell from his
father’s high stone seat with the direwolves carved into the
arms, and afterward Ser Rodrik had said he’d done well. If
that had been the end of it, he would not have minded. But it was
only the beginning.
“The feast makes a pleasant pretext,” Ser Rodrik
explained, “but a man does not cross a hundred leagues for a
sliver of duck and a sip of wine. Only those who have matters of
import to set before us are like to make the journey.”
Bran gazed up at the rough stone ceiling above his head. Robb
would tell him not to play the boy, he knew. He could almost hear
him, and their lord father as well. Winter is coming, and you are
almost a man grown, Bran. You have a duty.
When Hodor came bustling in, smiling and humming tunelessly, he
found the boy resigned to his fate. Together they got him washed
and brushed. “The white wool doublet today,” Bran
commanded. “And the silver brooch. Ser Rodrik will want me to
look lordly.” As much as he could, Bran preferred to dress
himself, but there were some tasks—pulling on breeches, lacing his
boots—that vexed him. They went quicker with Hodor’s help.
Once he had been taught to do something, he did it deftly. His
hands were always gentle, though his strength was astonishing.
“You could have been a knight too, I bet,” Bran told
him. “If the gods hadn’t taken your wits, you would
have been a great knight.”
“Hodor?” Hodor blinked at him with guileless brown
eyes, eyes innocent of understanding.
“Yes,” said Bran. “Hodor.” He pointed.
On the wall beside the door hung a basket, stoutly made of wicker
and leather, with holes cut for Bran’s legs. Hodor slid his
arms through the straps and cinched the wide belt tight around his
chest, then knelt beside the bed. Bran used the bars sunk into the
wall to support himself as he swung the dead weight of his legs
into the basket and through the holes.
“Hodor,” Hodor said again, rising. The stableboy
stood near seven feet tall all by himself; on his back Bran’s
head almost brushed the ceiling. He ducked low as they passed
through the door. One time Hodor smelled bread baking and ran to
the kitchens, and Bran got such a crack that Maester Luwin had to
sew up his scalp. Mikken had given him a rusty old visorless helm
from the armory, but Bran seldom troubled to wear it. The Walders
laughed whenever they saw it on his head.
He rested his hands on Hodor’s shoulders as they descended
the winding stair. Outside, the sounds of sword and shield and
horse already rang through the yard. It made a sweet music.
I’ll just have a look, Bran thought, a quick look,
that’s all.
The White Harbor lordlings would emerge later in the morning,
with their knights and men-at-arms. Until then, the yard belonged
to their squires, who ranged in age from ten to forty. Bran wished
he were one of them so badly that his stomach hurt with the
wanting.
Two quintains had been erected in the courtyard, each a stout
post supporting a spinning crossbeam with a shield at one end and a
padded butt at the other. The shields had been painted
red-and-gold, though the Lannister lions were lumpy and misshapen,
and already well scarred by the first boys to take a tilt at
them.
The sight of Bran in his basket drew stares from those who had
not seen it before, but he had learned to ignore stares. At least
he had a good view; on Hodor’s back, he towered over
everyone. The Walders were mounting up, he saw. They’d
brought fine armor up from the Twins, shining silver plate with
enameled blue chasings. Big Walder’s crest was shaped like a
castle, while Little Walder favored streamers of blue and grey
silk. Their shields and surcoats also set them apart from each
other. Little Walder quartered the twin towers of Frey with the
brindled boar of his grandmother’s House and the plowman of
his mother’s: Crakehall and Darry, respectively. Big
Walder’s quarterings were the tree-and-ravens of House
Blackwood and the twining snakes of the Paeges. They must be hungry
for honor, Bran thought as he watched them take up their lances. A
Stark needs only the direwolf.
Their dappled grey coursers were swift, strong, and beautifully
trained. Side by side they charged the quintains. Both hit the
shields cleanly and were well past before the padded butts came
spinning around. Little Walder struck the harder blow, but Bran
thought Big Walder sat his horse better. He would have given both
his useless legs for the chance to ride against either.
Little Walder cast his splintered lance aside, spied Bran, and
reined up. “Now there’s an ugly horse,” he said
of Hodor.
“Hodor’s no horse,” Bran said.
“Hodor,” said Hodor.
Big Walder trotted up to join his cousin. “Well,
he’s not as smart as a horse, that’s for
certain.” A few of the White Harbor lads poked each other and
laughed.
“Hodor.” Beaming genially, Hodor looked from one
Frey to the other, oblivious to their taunting. “Hodor
hodor?”
Little Walder’s mount whickered. “See, they’re
talking to each other. Maybe hodor means ‘I love you’
in horse.”
“You shut up, Frey.” Bran could feel his color
rising.
Little Walder spurred his horse closer, giving Hodor a bump that
pushed him backward. “What will you do if I
don’t?”
“He’ll set his wolf on you, cousin,” warned
Big Walder.
“Let him. I always wanted a wolfskin cloak.”
“Summer would tear your fat head off,” Bran
said.
Little Walder banged a mailed fist against his breastplate.
“Does your wolf have steel teeth, to bite through plate and
mail?”
“Enough!” Maester Luwin’s voice cracked
through the clangor of the yard as loud as a thunderclap. How much
he had overheard, Bran could not say . . . but
it was enough to anger him, clearly. “These threats are
unseemly, and I’ll hear no more of them. Is this how you
behave at the Twins, Walder Frey?”
“If I want to.” Atop his courser, Little Walder gave
Luwin a sullen glare, as if to say, You are only a maester, who are
you to reproach a Frey of the Crossing?
“Well, it is not how Lady Stark’s wards ought behave
at Winterfell. What’s at the root of this?” The maester
looked at each boy in turn. “One of you will tell me, I
swear, or—”
“We were having a jape with Hodor,” confessed Big
Walder. “I am sorry if we offended Prince Bran. We only meant
to be amusing.” He at least had the grace to look
abashed.
Little Walder only looked peevish. “And me,” he
said. “I was only being amusing too.”
The bald spot atop the maester’s head had turned red, Bran
could see; if anything, Luwin was more angry than before. “A
good lord comforts and protects the weak and helpless,” he
told the Freys. “I will not have you making Hodor the butt of
cruel jests, do you hear me? He’s a goodhearted lad, dutiful
and obedient, which is more than I can say for either of
you.” The maester wagged a finger at Little Walder.
“And you will stay out of the godswood and away from those
wolves, or answer for it.” Sleeves flapping, he turned on his
heels, stalked off a few paces, and glanced back. “Bran.
Come. Lord Wyman awaits.”
“Hodor, go with the maester,” Bran commanded.
“Hodor,” said Hodor. His long strides caught up with
the maester’s furiously pumping legs on the steps of the
Great Keep. Maester Luwin held the door open, and Bran hugged
Hodor’s neck and ducked as they went through.
“The Walders—” he began.
“I’ll hear no more of that, it’s done.”
Maester Luwin looked worn-out and frayed. “You were right to
defend Hodor, but you should never have been there. Ser Rodrik and
Lord Wyman have broken their fast already while they waited for
you. Must I come myself to fetch you, as if you were a little
child?”
“No,” Bran said, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I
only wanted . . . ”
“I know what you wanted,” Maester Luwin said, more
gently. “Would that it could be, Bran. Do you have any
questions before we begin this audience?”
“Will we talk of the war?”
“You will talk of naught.” The sharpness was back in
Luwin’s voice. “You are still a child of eight . . . ”
“Almost nine!”
“Eight,” the maester repeated firmly. “Speak
nothing but courtesies unless Ser Rodrik or Lord Wyman puts you a
question.”
Bran nodded. “I’ll remember.”
“I will say nothing to Ser Rodrik of what passed between
you and the Frey boys.”
“Thank you.”
They put Bran in his father’s oak chair with the grey
velvet cushions, behind a long plank-and-trestle table. Ser Rodrik
sat on his right hand and Maester Luwin to his left, armed with
quills and inkpots and a sheaf of blank parchment to write down all
that transpired. Bran ran a hand across the rough wood of the table
and begged Lord Wyman’s pardons for being late.
“Why, no prince is ever late,” the Lord of White
Harbor responded amiably. “Those who arrive before him have
come early, that’s all.” Wyman Manderly had a great
booming laugh. it was small wonder he could not sit a saddle; he
looked as if he outweighed most horses. As windy as he was vast, he
began by asking Winterfell to confirm the new customs officers he
had appointed for White Harbor. The old ones had been holding back
silver for King’s Landing rather than paying it over to the
new King in the North. “King Robb needs his own coinage as
well,” he declared, “and White Harbor is the very place
to mint it.” He offered to take charge of the matter, as it
please the king, and went from that to speak of how he had
strengthened the port’s defenses, detailing the cost of every
improvement.
In addition to a mint, Lord Manderly also proposed to build Robb
a warfleet. “We have had no strength at sea for hundreds of
years, since Brandon the Burner put the torch to his father’s
ships. Grant me the gold and within the year I will float you
sufficient galleys to take Dragonstone and King’s Landing
both.”
Bran’s interest pricked up at talk of warships. No one
asked him, but he thought Lord Wyman’s notion a splendid one.
In his mind’s eye he could see them already. He wondered if a
cripple had ever commanded a warship. But Ser Rodrik promised only
to send the proposal on to Robb for his consideration, while
Maester Luwin scratched at the parchment.
Midday came and went. Maester Luwin sent Poxy Tym down to the
kitchens, and they dined in the solar on cheese, capons, and brown
oatbread. While tearing apart a bird with fat fingers, Lord Wyman
made polite inquiry after Lady Hornwood, who was a cousin of his.
“She was born a Manderly, you know. Perhaps, when her grief
has run its course, she would like to be a Manderly again,
eh?” He took a bite from a wing, and smiled broadly.
“As it happens, I am a widower these past eight years. Past
time I took another wife, don’t you agree, my lords? A man
does get lonely.” Tossing the bones aside, he reached for a
leg. “Or if the lady fancies a younger lad, well, my son
Wendel is unwed as well. He is off south guarding Lady Catelyn, but
no doubt he will wish to take a bride on his return. A valiant boy,
and jolly. just the man to teach her to laugh again, eh?” He
wiped a bit of grease off his chin with the sleeve of his
tunic.
Bran could hear the distant clash of arms through the windows.
He cared nothing about marriages. I wish I was down in the
yard.
His lordship waited until the table had been cleared before he
raised the matter of a letter he had received from Lord Tywin
Lannister, who held his elder son, Ser Wylis, taken captive on the
Green Fork. “He offers him back to me without ransom,
provided I withdraw my levies from His Grace and vow to fight no
more.”
“You will refuse him, of course,” said Ser
Rodrik.
“Have no fear on that count,” the lord assured them.
“King Robb has no more loyal servant than Wyman Manderly. I
would be loath to see my son languish at Harrenhal any longer than
he must, however. That is an ill place. Cursed, they say. Not that
I am the sort to swallow such tales, but still, there it is. Look
at what’s befallen this Janos Slynt. Raised up to Lord of
Harrenhal by the queen, and cast down by her brother. Shipped off
to the Wall, they say. I pray some equitable exchange of captives
can be arranged before too very long. I know Wylis would not want
to sit out the rest of the war. Gallant, that son of mine, and
fierce as a mastiff.”
Bran’s shoulders were stiff from sitting in the same chair
by the time the audience drew to a close. And that night, as he sat
to supper, a horn sounded to herald the arrival of another guest.
Lady Donella Hornwood brought no tail of knights and retainers;
only herself, and six tired men-at-arms with a moosehead badge on
their dusty orange livery. “We are very sorry for all you
have suffered, my lady,” Bran said when she came before him
to speak her words of greetings. Lord Hornwood had been killed in
the battle on the Green Fork, their only son cut down in the
Whispering Wood. “Winterfell will remember.”
“That is good to know.” She was a pale husk of a
woman, every line of her face etched with grief. “I am very
weary, my lord. If I might have leave to rest, I should be
thankful.”
“To be sure,” Ser Rodrik said. “There is time
enough for talk on the morrow.”
When the morrow came, most of the morning was given over to talk
of grains and greens and salting meat. Once the maesters in their
Citadel had proclaimed the first of autumn, wise men put away a
portion of each harvest . . . though how large
a portion was a matter that seemed to require much talk. Lady
Hornwood was storing a fifth of her harvest. At Maester
Luwin’s suggestion, she vowed to increase that to a
quarter.
“Bolton’s bastard is massing men at the
Dreadfort,” she warned them. “I hope he means to take
them south to join his father at the Twins, but when I sent to ask
his intent, he told me that no Bolton would be questioned by a
woman. As if he were trueborn and had a right to that
name.”
“Lord Bolton has never acknowledged the boy, so far as I
know,” Ser Rodrik said. “I confess, I do not know
him.”
“Few do,” she replied. “He lived with his
mother until two years past, when young Domeric died and left
Bolton without an heir. That was when he brought his bastard to the
Dreadfort. The boy is a sly creature by all accounts, and he has a
servant who is almost as cruel as he is. Reek, they call the man.
It’s said he never bathes. They hunt together, the Bastard
and this Reek, and not for deer. I’ve heard tales, things I
can scarce believe, even of a Bolton. And now that my lord husband
and my sweet son have gone to the gods, the Bastard looks at my
lands hungrily.”
Bran wanted to give the lady a hundred men to defend her rights,
but Ser Rodrik only said, “He may look, but should he do more
I promise you there will be dire retribution. You will be safe
enough, my lady . . . though perhaps in time,
when your grief is passed, you may find it prudent to wed
again.”
“I am past my childbearing years, what beauty I had long
fled,” she replied with a tired half smile, “yet men
come sniffing after me as they never did when I was a
maid.”
“You do not look favorably on these suitors?” asked
Luwin.
“I shall wed again if His Grace commands it,” Lady
Hornwood replied, “but Mors Crowfood is a drunken brute, and
older than my father. As for my noble cousin of Manderly, my
lord’s bed is not large enough to hold one of his majesty,
and I am surely too small and frail to lie beneath him.”
Bran knew that men slept on top of women when they shared a bed.
Sleeping under Lord Manderly would be like sleeping under a fallen
horse, he imagined. Ser Rodrik gave the widow a sympathetic nod.
“You will have other suitors, my lady. We shall try and find
you a prospect more to your taste.”
“Perhaps you need not look very far, ser.”
After she had taken her leave, Maester Luwin smiled. “Ser
Rodrik, I do believe my lady fancies you.”
Ser Rodrik cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable.
“She was very sad,” said Bran.
Ser Rodrik nodded. “Sad and gentle, and not at all
uncomely for a woman of her years, for all her modesty. Yet a
danger to the peace of your brother’s realm
nonetheless.”
“Her?” Bran said, astonished.
Maester Luwin answered. “With no direct heir, there are
sure to be many claimants contending for the Hornwood lands. The
Tallharts, Flints, and Karstarks all have ties to House Hornwood
through the female line, and the Glovers are fostering Lord
Harys’s bastard at Deepwood Motte. The Dreadfort has no claim
that I know, but the lands adjoin, and Roose Bolton is not one to
overlook such a chance.”
Ser Rodrik tugged at his whiskers. “In such cases, her
liege lord must find her a suitable match.”
“Why can’t you marry her?” Bran asked.
“You said she was comely, and Beth would have a
mother.”
The old knight put a hand on Bran’s arm. “A kindly
thought, my prince, but I am only a knight, and besides too old. I
might hold her lands for a few years, but as soon as I died Lady
Hornwood would find herself back in the same mire, and Beth’s
prospects might be perilous as well.”
“Then let Lord Hornwood’s bastard be the
heir,” Bran said, thinking of his half brother Jon.
Ser Rodrik said, “That would please the Glovers, and
perhaps Lord Hornwood’s shade as well, but I do not think
Lady Hornwood would love us. The boy is not of her
blood.”
“Still,” said Maester Luwin, “it must be
considered. Lady Donella is past her fertile years, as she said
herself. If not the bastard, who?”
“May I be excused?” Bran could hear the squires at
their swordplay in the yard below, the ring of steel on steel.
“As you will, my prince,” said Ser Rodrik.
“You did well.” Bran flushed with pleasure. Being a
lord was not so tedious as he had feared, and since Lady Hornwood
had been so much briefer than Lord Manderly, he even had a few
hours of daylight left to visit with Summer. He liked to spend time
with his wolf every day, when Ser Rodrik and the maester allowed
it.
No sooner had Hodor entered the godswood than Summer emerged
from under an oak, almost as if he had known they were coming. Bran
glimpsed a lean black shape watching from the undergrowth as well.
“Shaggy,” he called. “Here, Shaggydog. To
me.” But Rickon’s wolf vanished as swiftly as
he’d appeared.
Hodor knew Bran’s favorite place, so he took him to the
edge of the pool beneath the great spread of the heart tree, where
Lord Eddard used to kneel to pray. Ripples were running across the
surface of the water when they arrived, making the reflection of
the weirwood shimmer and dance. There was no wind, though. For an
instant Bran was baffled.
And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash,
so sudden that even Summer leapt back, snarling. Hodor jumped away,
wailing “Hodor, Hodor” in dismay until Bran patted his
shoulder to soothe his fears. “How can you swim in
there?” he asked Osha. “Isn’t it cold?”
“As a babe I suckled on icicles, boy. I like the
cold.” Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was
naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and
sniffed at her. “I wanted to touch the bottom.”
“I never knew there was a bottom.”
“Might be there isn’t.” She grinned.
“What are you staring at, boy? Never seen a woman
before?”
“I have so.” Bran had bathed with his sisters
hundreds of times and he’d seen serving women in the hot
pools too. Osha looked different, though, hard and sharp instead of
soft and curvy. Her legs were all sinew, her breasts flat as two
empty purses. “You’ve got a lot of scars.”
“Every one hard earned.” She picked up her brown
shift, shook some leaves off of it, and pulled it down over her
head.
“Fighting giants?” Osha claimed there were still
giants beyond the Wall. One day maybe I’ll even see
one . . .
“Fighting men.” She belted herself with a length of
rope. “Black crows, oft as not. Killed me one too,” she
said, shaking out her hair. It had grown since she’d come to
Winterfell, well down past her ears. She looked softer than the
woman who had once tried to rob and kill him in the wolfswood.
“Heard some yattering in the kitchen today about you and them
Freys.”
“Who? What did they say?”
She gave him a sour grin. “That it’s a fool boy who
mocks a giant, and a mad world when a cripple has to defend
him.”
“Hodor never knew they were mocking him,” Bran said.
“Anyhow he never fights.” He remembered once when he
was little, going to the market square with his mother and Septa
Mordane. They brought Hodor to carry for them, but he had wandered
away, and when they found him some boys had him backed into an
alley, poking him with sticks. “Hodor!” he kept
shouting, cringing and covering himself, but he had never raised a
hand against his tormentors. “Septon Chayle says he has a
gentle spirit.”
“Aye,” she said, “and hands strong enough to
twist a man’s head off his shoulders, if he takes a mind to.
All the same, he better watch his back around that Walder. Him and
you both. The big one they call little, it comes to me he’s
well named. Big outside, little inside, and mean down to the
bones.”
“He’d never dare hurt me. He’s scared of
Summer, no matter what he says.”
“Then might be he’s not so stupid as he
seems.” Osha was always wary around the direwolves. The day
she was taken, Summer and Grey Wind between them had torn three
wildlings to bloody pieces. “Or might be he is. And that
tastes of trouble too.” She tied up her hair. “You have
more of them wolf dreams?”
“No.” He did not like to talk about the dreams.
“A prince should lie better than that.” Osha
laughed. “Well, your dreams are your business. Mine’s
in the kitchens, and I’d best be getting back before Gage
starts to shouting and waving that big wooden spoon of his. By your
leave, my prince.” She should never have talked about the wolf dreams, Bran thought
as Hodor carried him up the steps to his bedchamber. He fought
against sleep as long as he could, but in the end it took him as it
always did. On this night he dreamed of the weirwood. it was
looking at him with its deep red eyes, calling to him with its
twisted wooden mouth, and from its pale branches the three-eyed
crow came flapping, pecking at his face and crying his name in a
voice as sharp as swords.
The blast of horns woke him. Bran pushed himself onto his side,
grateful for the reprieve. He heard horses and boisterous shouting.
More guests have come, and half-drunk by the noise of them.
Grasping his bars he pulled himself from the bed and over to the
window seat. On their banner was a giant in shattered chains that
told him that these were Umber men, down from the northlands beyond
the Last River.
The next day two of them came together to audience; the
Greatjon’s uncles, blustery men in the winter of their days
with beards as white as the bearskin cloaks they wore. A crow had
once taken Mors for dead and pecked out his eye, so he wore a chunk
of dragonglass in its stead. As Old Nan told the tale, he’d
grabbed the crow in his fist and bitten its head off, so they named
him Crowfood. She would never tell Bran why his gaunt brother
Hother was called Whoresbane.
No sooner had they been seated than Mors asked for leave to wed
Lady Hornwood. “The Greatjon’s the Young Wolf’s
strong right hand, all know that to be true. Who better to protect
the widow’s lands than an Umber, and what Umber better than
me?”
“Lady Donella is still grieving,” Maester Luwin
said.
“I have a cure for grief under my furs.” Mors
laughed. Ser Rodrik thanked him courteously and promised to bring
the matter before the lady and the king.
Hother wanted ships. “There’s wildlings stealing
down from the north, more than I’ve ever seen before. They
cross the Bay of Seals in little boats and wash up on our shores.
The crows in Eastwatch are too few to stop them, and they go to
ground quick as weasels. It’s longships we need, aye, and
strong men to sail them. The Greatjon took too many. Half our
harvest is gone to seed for want of arms to swing the
scythes.”
Ser Rodrik pulled at his whiskers. “You have forests of
tall pine and old oak. Lord Manderly has shipwrights and sailors in
plenty. Together you ought to be able to float enough longships to
guard both your coasts.”
“Manderly?” Mors Umber snorted. “That great
waddling sack of suet? His own people mock him as Lord Lamprey,
I’ve heard. The man can scarce walk. If you stuck a sword in
his belly, ten thousand eels would wriggle out.”
“He is fat,” Ser Rodrik admitted, “but he is
not stupid. You will work with him, or the king will know the
reason why.” And to Bran’s astonishment, the truculent
Umbers agreed to do as he commanded, though not without
grumbling.
While they were sitting at audience, the Glover men arrived from
Deepwood Motte, and a large party of Tallharts from Torrhen’s
Square. Galbart and Robett Glover had left Deepwood in the hands of
Robett’s wife, but it was their steward who came to
Winterfell. “My lady begs that you excuse her absence. Her
babes are still too young for such a journey, and she was loath to
leave them.” Bran soon realized that it was the steward, not
Lady Glover, who truly ruled at Deepwood Motte. The man allowed
that he was at present setting aside only a tenth of his harvest. A
hedge wizard had told him there would be a bountiful spirit summer
before the cold set in, he claimed. Maester Luwin had a number of
choice things to say about hedge wizards. Ser Rodrik commanded the
man to set aside a fifth, and questioned the steward closely about
Lord Hornwood’s bastard, the boy Larence Snow. In the north,
all highborn bastards took the surname Snow. This lad was near
twelve, and the steward praised his wits and courage.
“Your notion about the bastard may have merit,
Bran,” Maester Luwin said after. “One day you will be a
good lord for Winterfell, I think.”
“No I won’t.” Bran knew he would never be a
lord, no more than he could be a knight. “Robb’s to
marry some Frey girl, you told me so yourself, and the Walders say
the same. He’ll have sons, and they’ll be the lords of
Winterfell after him, not me.”
“It may be so, Bran,” Ser Rodrik said, “but I
was wed three times and my wives gave me daughters. Now only Beth
remains to me. My brother Martyn fathered four strong sons, yet
only Jory lived to be a man. When he was slain, Martyn’s line
died with him. When we speak of the morrow nothing is ever
certain.”
Leobald Tallhart had his turn the following day. He spoke of
weather portents and the slack wits of smallfolk, and told how his
nephew itched for battle. “Benfred has raised his own company
of lances. Boys, none older than nineteen years, but every one
thinks he’s another young wolf. When I told them they were
only young rabbits, they laughed at me. Now they call themselves
the Wild Hares and gallop about the country with rabbitskins tied
to the ends of their lances, singing songs of chivalry.”
Bran thought that sounded grand. He remembered Benfred Tallhart,
a big bluff loud boy who had often visited Winterfell with his
father, Ser Helman, and had been friendly with Robb and with Theon
Greyjoy. But Ser Rodrik was clearly displeased by what he heard.
“If the king were in need of more men, he would send for
them,” he said. “Instruct your nephew that he is to
remain at Torrhen’s Square, as his lord father
commanded.”
“I will, ser,” said Leobald, and only then raised
the matter of Lady Hornwood. Poor thing, with no husband to defend
her lands nor son to inherit. His own lady wife was a Hornwood,
sister to the late Lord Halys, doubtless they recalled. “An
empty hall is a sad one. I had a thought to send my younger son to
Lady Donella to foster as her own. Beren is near ten, a likely lad,
and her own nephew. He would cheer her, I am certain, and perhaps
he would even take the name Hornwood . . . ”
“If he were named heir?” suggested Maester
Luwin.
“ . . . so the House might
continue,” finished Leobald.
Bran knew what to say. “Thank you for the notion, my
lord,” he blurted out before Ser Rodrik could speak.
“We will bring the matter to my brother Robb. Oh, and Lady
Hornwood.”
Leobald seemed surprised that he had spoken. “I’m
grateful, my prince,” he said, but Bran saw pity in his pale
blue eyes, mingled perhaps with a little gladness that the cripple
was, after all, not his son. For a moment he hated the man.
Maester Luwin liked him better, though. “Beren Tallhart
may well be our best answer,” he told them when Leobald had
gone. “By blood he is half Hornwood. If he takes his
uncle’s name . . . ”
“ . . . he will still be a boy,”
said Ser Rodrik, “and hard-pressed to hold his lands against
the likes of Mors Umber or this bastard of Roose Bolton’s. We
must think on this carefully. Robb should have our best counsel
before he makes his decision.”
“It may come down to practicalities,” said Maester
Luwin. “Which lord he most needs to court. The riverlands are
part of his realm, he may wish to cement the alliance by wedding
Lady Hornwood to one of the lords of the Trident. A Blackwood,
perhaps, or a Frey—”
“Lady Hornwood can have one of our Freys,” said
Bran. “She can have both of them if she likes.”
“You are not kind, my prince,” Ser Rodrik chided
gently. Neither are the Walders. Scowling, Bran stared down at the table
and said nothing.
In the days that followed, ravens arrived from other lordly
houses, bearing regrets. The bastard of the Dreadfort would not be
joining them, the Mormonts and Karstarks had all gone south with
Robb, Lord Locke was too old to dare the journey, Lady Flint was
heavy with child, there was sickness at Widow’s Watch.
Finally all of the principal vassals of House Stark had been heard
from save for Howland Reed the crannogman, who had not set foot
outside his swamps for many a year, and the Cerwyns whose castle
lay a half day’s ride from Winterfell. Lord Cerwyn was a
captive of the Lannisters, but his son, a lad of fourteen, arrived
one bright, blustery morning at the head of two dozen lances. Bran
was riding Dancer around the yard when they came through the gate.
He trotted over to greet them. Cley Cerwyn had always been a friend
to Bran and his brothers.
“Good morrow, Bran,” Cley called out cheerfully.
“Or must I call you Prince Bran now?”
“Only if you want.”
Cley laughed. “Why not? Everyone else is a king or prince
these days. Did Stannis write Winterfell as well?”
“Stannis? I don’t know.”
“He’s a king now too,” Cley confided.
“He says Queen Cersei bedded her brother, so Joffrey is a
bastard.”
“Joffrey the Illborn,” one of the Cerwyn knights
growled. “Small wonder he’s faithless, with the
Kingslayer for a father.”
“Aye,” said another, “the gods hate incest.
Look how they brought down the Targaryens.”
For a moment Bran felt as though he could not breathe. A giant
hand was crushing his chest. He felt as though he was falling, and
clutched desperately at Dancer’s reins.
His terror must have shown on his face. “Bran?” Cley
Cerwyn said. “Are you unwell? It’s only another
king.”
“Robb will beat him too.” He turned Dancer’s
head toward the stables, oblivious to the puzzled stares the
Cerwyns gave him. His blood was roaring in his ears, and had he not
been strapped onto his saddle he might well have fallen.
That night Bran prayed to his father’s gods for dreamless
sleep. If the gods heard, they mocked his hopes, for the nightmare
they sent was worse than any wolf dream.
“Fly or die!” cried the three-eyed crow as it pecked
at him. He wept and pleaded but the crow had no pity. It put out
his left eye and then his right, and when he was blind in the dark
it pecked at his brow, driving its terrible sharp beak deep into
his skull. He screamed until he was certain his lungs must burst.
The pain was an axe splitting his head apart, but when the crow
wrenched out its beak all slimy with bits of bone and brain, Bran
could see again. What he saw made him gasp in fear. He was clinging
to a tower miles high, and his fingers were slipping, nails
scrabbling at the stone, his legs dragging him down, stupid useless
dead legs. “Help me!” he cried. A golden man appeared
in the sky above him and pulled him up. “The things I do for
love,” he murmured softly as he tossed him out kicking into
empty air.
Long before the first pale fingers of light pried apart
Bran’s shutters, his eyes were open.
There were guests in Winterfell, visitors come for the harvest
feast. This morning they would be tilting at quintains in the yard.
Once that prospect would have filled him with excitement, but that
was before.
Not now. The Walders would break lances with the squires of Lord
Manderly’s escort, but Bran would have no part of it. He must
play the prince in his father’s solar. “Listen, and it
may be that you will learn something of what lordship is all
about,” Maester Luwin had said.
Bran had never asked to be a prince. It was knighthood he had
always dreamed of; bright armor and streaming banners, lance and
sword, a warhorse between his legs. Why must he waste his days
listening to old men speak of things he only half understood?
Because you’re broken, a voice inside reminded him. A lord on
his cushioned chair might be crippled—the Walders said their
grandfather was so feeble he had to be carried everywhere in a
litter—but not a knight on his destrier. Besides, it was his duty.
“You are your brother’s heir and the Stark in
Winterfell,” Ser Rodrik said, reminding him of how Robb used
to sit with their lord father when his bannermen came to see
him.
Lord Wyman Manderly had arrived from White Harbor two days past,
traveling by barge and litter, as he was too fat to sit a horse.
With him had come a long tail of retainers: knights, squires,
lesser lords and ladies, heralds, musicians, even a juggler, all
aglitter with banners and surcoats in what seemed half a hundred
colors. Bran had welcomed them to Winterfell from his
father’s high stone seat with the direwolves carved into the
arms, and afterward Ser Rodrik had said he’d done well. If
that had been the end of it, he would not have minded. But it was
only the beginning.
“The feast makes a pleasant pretext,” Ser Rodrik
explained, “but a man does not cross a hundred leagues for a
sliver of duck and a sip of wine. Only those who have matters of
import to set before us are like to make the journey.”
Bran gazed up at the rough stone ceiling above his head. Robb
would tell him not to play the boy, he knew. He could almost hear
him, and their lord father as well. Winter is coming, and you are
almost a man grown, Bran. You have a duty.
When Hodor came bustling in, smiling and humming tunelessly, he
found the boy resigned to his fate. Together they got him washed
and brushed. “The white wool doublet today,” Bran
commanded. “And the silver brooch. Ser Rodrik will want me to
look lordly.” As much as he could, Bran preferred to dress
himself, but there were some tasks—pulling on breeches, lacing his
boots—that vexed him. They went quicker with Hodor’s help.
Once he had been taught to do something, he did it deftly. His
hands were always gentle, though his strength was astonishing.
“You could have been a knight too, I bet,” Bran told
him. “If the gods hadn’t taken your wits, you would
have been a great knight.”
“Hodor?” Hodor blinked at him with guileless brown
eyes, eyes innocent of understanding.
“Yes,” said Bran. “Hodor.” He pointed.
On the wall beside the door hung a basket, stoutly made of wicker
and leather, with holes cut for Bran’s legs. Hodor slid his
arms through the straps and cinched the wide belt tight around his
chest, then knelt beside the bed. Bran used the bars sunk into the
wall to support himself as he swung the dead weight of his legs
into the basket and through the holes.
“Hodor,” Hodor said again, rising. The stableboy
stood near seven feet tall all by himself; on his back Bran’s
head almost brushed the ceiling. He ducked low as they passed
through the door. One time Hodor smelled bread baking and ran to
the kitchens, and Bran got such a crack that Maester Luwin had to
sew up his scalp. Mikken had given him a rusty old visorless helm
from the armory, but Bran seldom troubled to wear it. The Walders
laughed whenever they saw it on his head.
He rested his hands on Hodor’s shoulders as they descended
the winding stair. Outside, the sounds of sword and shield and
horse already rang through the yard. It made a sweet music.
I’ll just have a look, Bran thought, a quick look,
that’s all.
The White Harbor lordlings would emerge later in the morning,
with their knights and men-at-arms. Until then, the yard belonged
to their squires, who ranged in age from ten to forty. Bran wished
he were one of them so badly that his stomach hurt with the
wanting.
Two quintains had been erected in the courtyard, each a stout
post supporting a spinning crossbeam with a shield at one end and a
padded butt at the other. The shields had been painted
red-and-gold, though the Lannister lions were lumpy and misshapen,
and already well scarred by the first boys to take a tilt at
them.
The sight of Bran in his basket drew stares from those who had
not seen it before, but he had learned to ignore stares. At least
he had a good view; on Hodor’s back, he towered over
everyone. The Walders were mounting up, he saw. They’d
brought fine armor up from the Twins, shining silver plate with
enameled blue chasings. Big Walder’s crest was shaped like a
castle, while Little Walder favored streamers of blue and grey
silk. Their shields and surcoats also set them apart from each
other. Little Walder quartered the twin towers of Frey with the
brindled boar of his grandmother’s House and the plowman of
his mother’s: Crakehall and Darry, respectively. Big
Walder’s quarterings were the tree-and-ravens of House
Blackwood and the twining snakes of the Paeges. They must be hungry
for honor, Bran thought as he watched them take up their lances. A
Stark needs only the direwolf.
Their dappled grey coursers were swift, strong, and beautifully
trained. Side by side they charged the quintains. Both hit the
shields cleanly and were well past before the padded butts came
spinning around. Little Walder struck the harder blow, but Bran
thought Big Walder sat his horse better. He would have given both
his useless legs for the chance to ride against either.
Little Walder cast his splintered lance aside, spied Bran, and
reined up. “Now there’s an ugly horse,” he said
of Hodor.
“Hodor’s no horse,” Bran said.
“Hodor,” said Hodor.
Big Walder trotted up to join his cousin. “Well,
he’s not as smart as a horse, that’s for
certain.” A few of the White Harbor lads poked each other and
laughed.
“Hodor.” Beaming genially, Hodor looked from one
Frey to the other, oblivious to their taunting. “Hodor
hodor?”
Little Walder’s mount whickered. “See, they’re
talking to each other. Maybe hodor means ‘I love you’
in horse.”
“You shut up, Frey.” Bran could feel his color
rising.
Little Walder spurred his horse closer, giving Hodor a bump that
pushed him backward. “What will you do if I
don’t?”
“He’ll set his wolf on you, cousin,” warned
Big Walder.
“Let him. I always wanted a wolfskin cloak.”
“Summer would tear your fat head off,” Bran
said.
Little Walder banged a mailed fist against his breastplate.
“Does your wolf have steel teeth, to bite through plate and
mail?”
“Enough!” Maester Luwin’s voice cracked
through the clangor of the yard as loud as a thunderclap. How much
he had overheard, Bran could not say . . . but
it was enough to anger him, clearly. “These threats are
unseemly, and I’ll hear no more of them. Is this how you
behave at the Twins, Walder Frey?”
“If I want to.” Atop his courser, Little Walder gave
Luwin a sullen glare, as if to say, You are only a maester, who are
you to reproach a Frey of the Crossing?
“Well, it is not how Lady Stark’s wards ought behave
at Winterfell. What’s at the root of this?” The maester
looked at each boy in turn. “One of you will tell me, I
swear, or—”
“We were having a jape with Hodor,” confessed Big
Walder. “I am sorry if we offended Prince Bran. We only meant
to be amusing.” He at least had the grace to look
abashed.
Little Walder only looked peevish. “And me,” he
said. “I was only being amusing too.”
The bald spot atop the maester’s head had turned red, Bran
could see; if anything, Luwin was more angry than before. “A
good lord comforts and protects the weak and helpless,” he
told the Freys. “I will not have you making Hodor the butt of
cruel jests, do you hear me? He’s a goodhearted lad, dutiful
and obedient, which is more than I can say for either of
you.” The maester wagged a finger at Little Walder.
“And you will stay out of the godswood and away from those
wolves, or answer for it.” Sleeves flapping, he turned on his
heels, stalked off a few paces, and glanced back. “Bran.
Come. Lord Wyman awaits.”
“Hodor, go with the maester,” Bran commanded.
“Hodor,” said Hodor. His long strides caught up with
the maester’s furiously pumping legs on the steps of the
Great Keep. Maester Luwin held the door open, and Bran hugged
Hodor’s neck and ducked as they went through.
“The Walders—” he began.
“I’ll hear no more of that, it’s done.”
Maester Luwin looked worn-out and frayed. “You were right to
defend Hodor, but you should never have been there. Ser Rodrik and
Lord Wyman have broken their fast already while they waited for
you. Must I come myself to fetch you, as if you were a little
child?”
“No,” Bran said, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I
only wanted . . . ”
“I know what you wanted,” Maester Luwin said, more
gently. “Would that it could be, Bran. Do you have any
questions before we begin this audience?”
“Will we talk of the war?”
“You will talk of naught.” The sharpness was back in
Luwin’s voice. “You are still a child of eight . . . ”
“Almost nine!”
“Eight,” the maester repeated firmly. “Speak
nothing but courtesies unless Ser Rodrik or Lord Wyman puts you a
question.”
Bran nodded. “I’ll remember.”
“I will say nothing to Ser Rodrik of what passed between
you and the Frey boys.”
“Thank you.”
They put Bran in his father’s oak chair with the grey
velvet cushions, behind a long plank-and-trestle table. Ser Rodrik
sat on his right hand and Maester Luwin to his left, armed with
quills and inkpots and a sheaf of blank parchment to write down all
that transpired. Bran ran a hand across the rough wood of the table
and begged Lord Wyman’s pardons for being late.
“Why, no prince is ever late,” the Lord of White
Harbor responded amiably. “Those who arrive before him have
come early, that’s all.” Wyman Manderly had a great
booming laugh. it was small wonder he could not sit a saddle; he
looked as if he outweighed most horses. As windy as he was vast, he
began by asking Winterfell to confirm the new customs officers he
had appointed for White Harbor. The old ones had been holding back
silver for King’s Landing rather than paying it over to the
new King in the North. “King Robb needs his own coinage as
well,” he declared, “and White Harbor is the very place
to mint it.” He offered to take charge of the matter, as it
please the king, and went from that to speak of how he had
strengthened the port’s defenses, detailing the cost of every
improvement.
In addition to a mint, Lord Manderly also proposed to build Robb
a warfleet. “We have had no strength at sea for hundreds of
years, since Brandon the Burner put the torch to his father’s
ships. Grant me the gold and within the year I will float you
sufficient galleys to take Dragonstone and King’s Landing
both.”
Bran’s interest pricked up at talk of warships. No one
asked him, but he thought Lord Wyman’s notion a splendid one.
In his mind’s eye he could see them already. He wondered if a
cripple had ever commanded a warship. But Ser Rodrik promised only
to send the proposal on to Robb for his consideration, while
Maester Luwin scratched at the parchment.
Midday came and went. Maester Luwin sent Poxy Tym down to the
kitchens, and they dined in the solar on cheese, capons, and brown
oatbread. While tearing apart a bird with fat fingers, Lord Wyman
made polite inquiry after Lady Hornwood, who was a cousin of his.
“She was born a Manderly, you know. Perhaps, when her grief
has run its course, she would like to be a Manderly again,
eh?” He took a bite from a wing, and smiled broadly.
“As it happens, I am a widower these past eight years. Past
time I took another wife, don’t you agree, my lords? A man
does get lonely.” Tossing the bones aside, he reached for a
leg. “Or if the lady fancies a younger lad, well, my son
Wendel is unwed as well. He is off south guarding Lady Catelyn, but
no doubt he will wish to take a bride on his return. A valiant boy,
and jolly. just the man to teach her to laugh again, eh?” He
wiped a bit of grease off his chin with the sleeve of his
tunic.
Bran could hear the distant clash of arms through the windows.
He cared nothing about marriages. I wish I was down in the
yard.
His lordship waited until the table had been cleared before he
raised the matter of a letter he had received from Lord Tywin
Lannister, who held his elder son, Ser Wylis, taken captive on the
Green Fork. “He offers him back to me without ransom,
provided I withdraw my levies from His Grace and vow to fight no
more.”
“You will refuse him, of course,” said Ser
Rodrik.
“Have no fear on that count,” the lord assured them.
“King Robb has no more loyal servant than Wyman Manderly. I
would be loath to see my son languish at Harrenhal any longer than
he must, however. That is an ill place. Cursed, they say. Not that
I am the sort to swallow such tales, but still, there it is. Look
at what’s befallen this Janos Slynt. Raised up to Lord of
Harrenhal by the queen, and cast down by her brother. Shipped off
to the Wall, they say. I pray some equitable exchange of captives
can be arranged before too very long. I know Wylis would not want
to sit out the rest of the war. Gallant, that son of mine, and
fierce as a mastiff.”
Bran’s shoulders were stiff from sitting in the same chair
by the time the audience drew to a close. And that night, as he sat
to supper, a horn sounded to herald the arrival of another guest.
Lady Donella Hornwood brought no tail of knights and retainers;
only herself, and six tired men-at-arms with a moosehead badge on
their dusty orange livery. “We are very sorry for all you
have suffered, my lady,” Bran said when she came before him
to speak her words of greetings. Lord Hornwood had been killed in
the battle on the Green Fork, their only son cut down in the
Whispering Wood. “Winterfell will remember.”
“That is good to know.” She was a pale husk of a
woman, every line of her face etched with grief. “I am very
weary, my lord. If I might have leave to rest, I should be
thankful.”
“To be sure,” Ser Rodrik said. “There is time
enough for talk on the morrow.”
When the morrow came, most of the morning was given over to talk
of grains and greens and salting meat. Once the maesters in their
Citadel had proclaimed the first of autumn, wise men put away a
portion of each harvest . . . though how large
a portion was a matter that seemed to require much talk. Lady
Hornwood was storing a fifth of her harvest. At Maester
Luwin’s suggestion, she vowed to increase that to a
quarter.
“Bolton’s bastard is massing men at the
Dreadfort,” she warned them. “I hope he means to take
them south to join his father at the Twins, but when I sent to ask
his intent, he told me that no Bolton would be questioned by a
woman. As if he were trueborn and had a right to that
name.”
“Lord Bolton has never acknowledged the boy, so far as I
know,” Ser Rodrik said. “I confess, I do not know
him.”
“Few do,” she replied. “He lived with his
mother until two years past, when young Domeric died and left
Bolton without an heir. That was when he brought his bastard to the
Dreadfort. The boy is a sly creature by all accounts, and he has a
servant who is almost as cruel as he is. Reek, they call the man.
It’s said he never bathes. They hunt together, the Bastard
and this Reek, and not for deer. I’ve heard tales, things I
can scarce believe, even of a Bolton. And now that my lord husband
and my sweet son have gone to the gods, the Bastard looks at my
lands hungrily.”
Bran wanted to give the lady a hundred men to defend her rights,
but Ser Rodrik only said, “He may look, but should he do more
I promise you there will be dire retribution. You will be safe
enough, my lady . . . though perhaps in time,
when your grief is passed, you may find it prudent to wed
again.”
“I am past my childbearing years, what beauty I had long
fled,” she replied with a tired half smile, “yet men
come sniffing after me as they never did when I was a
maid.”
“You do not look favorably on these suitors?” asked
Luwin.
“I shall wed again if His Grace commands it,” Lady
Hornwood replied, “but Mors Crowfood is a drunken brute, and
older than my father. As for my noble cousin of Manderly, my
lord’s bed is not large enough to hold one of his majesty,
and I am surely too small and frail to lie beneath him.”
Bran knew that men slept on top of women when they shared a bed.
Sleeping under Lord Manderly would be like sleeping under a fallen
horse, he imagined. Ser Rodrik gave the widow a sympathetic nod.
“You will have other suitors, my lady. We shall try and find
you a prospect more to your taste.”
“Perhaps you need not look very far, ser.”
After she had taken her leave, Maester Luwin smiled. “Ser
Rodrik, I do believe my lady fancies you.”
Ser Rodrik cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable.
“She was very sad,” said Bran.
Ser Rodrik nodded. “Sad and gentle, and not at all
uncomely for a woman of her years, for all her modesty. Yet a
danger to the peace of your brother’s realm
nonetheless.”
“Her?” Bran said, astonished.
Maester Luwin answered. “With no direct heir, there are
sure to be many claimants contending for the Hornwood lands. The
Tallharts, Flints, and Karstarks all have ties to House Hornwood
through the female line, and the Glovers are fostering Lord
Harys’s bastard at Deepwood Motte. The Dreadfort has no claim
that I know, but the lands adjoin, and Roose Bolton is not one to
overlook such a chance.”
Ser Rodrik tugged at his whiskers. “In such cases, her
liege lord must find her a suitable match.”
“Why can’t you marry her?” Bran asked.
“You said she was comely, and Beth would have a
mother.”
The old knight put a hand on Bran’s arm. “A kindly
thought, my prince, but I am only a knight, and besides too old. I
might hold her lands for a few years, but as soon as I died Lady
Hornwood would find herself back in the same mire, and Beth’s
prospects might be perilous as well.”
“Then let Lord Hornwood’s bastard be the
heir,” Bran said, thinking of his half brother Jon.
Ser Rodrik said, “That would please the Glovers, and
perhaps Lord Hornwood’s shade as well, but I do not think
Lady Hornwood would love us. The boy is not of her
blood.”
“Still,” said Maester Luwin, “it must be
considered. Lady Donella is past her fertile years, as she said
herself. If not the bastard, who?”
“May I be excused?” Bran could hear the squires at
their swordplay in the yard below, the ring of steel on steel.
“As you will, my prince,” said Ser Rodrik.
“You did well.” Bran flushed with pleasure. Being a
lord was not so tedious as he had feared, and since Lady Hornwood
had been so much briefer than Lord Manderly, he even had a few
hours of daylight left to visit with Summer. He liked to spend time
with his wolf every day, when Ser Rodrik and the maester allowed
it.
No sooner had Hodor entered the godswood than Summer emerged
from under an oak, almost as if he had known they were coming. Bran
glimpsed a lean black shape watching from the undergrowth as well.
“Shaggy,” he called. “Here, Shaggydog. To
me.” But Rickon’s wolf vanished as swiftly as
he’d appeared.
Hodor knew Bran’s favorite place, so he took him to the
edge of the pool beneath the great spread of the heart tree, where
Lord Eddard used to kneel to pray. Ripples were running across the
surface of the water when they arrived, making the reflection of
the weirwood shimmer and dance. There was no wind, though. For an
instant Bran was baffled.
And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash,
so sudden that even Summer leapt back, snarling. Hodor jumped away,
wailing “Hodor, Hodor” in dismay until Bran patted his
shoulder to soothe his fears. “How can you swim in
there?” he asked Osha. “Isn’t it cold?”
“As a babe I suckled on icicles, boy. I like the
cold.” Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was
naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and
sniffed at her. “I wanted to touch the bottom.”
“I never knew there was a bottom.”
“Might be there isn’t.” She grinned.
“What are you staring at, boy? Never seen a woman
before?”
“I have so.” Bran had bathed with his sisters
hundreds of times and he’d seen serving women in the hot
pools too. Osha looked different, though, hard and sharp instead of
soft and curvy. Her legs were all sinew, her breasts flat as two
empty purses. “You’ve got a lot of scars.”
“Every one hard earned.” She picked up her brown
shift, shook some leaves off of it, and pulled it down over her
head.
“Fighting giants?” Osha claimed there were still
giants beyond the Wall. One day maybe I’ll even see
one . . .
“Fighting men.” She belted herself with a length of
rope. “Black crows, oft as not. Killed me one too,” she
said, shaking out her hair. It had grown since she’d come to
Winterfell, well down past her ears. She looked softer than the
woman who had once tried to rob and kill him in the wolfswood.
“Heard some yattering in the kitchen today about you and them
Freys.”
“Who? What did they say?”
She gave him a sour grin. “That it’s a fool boy who
mocks a giant, and a mad world when a cripple has to defend
him.”
“Hodor never knew they were mocking him,” Bran said.
“Anyhow he never fights.” He remembered once when he
was little, going to the market square with his mother and Septa
Mordane. They brought Hodor to carry for them, but he had wandered
away, and when they found him some boys had him backed into an
alley, poking him with sticks. “Hodor!” he kept
shouting, cringing and covering himself, but he had never raised a
hand against his tormentors. “Septon Chayle says he has a
gentle spirit.”
“Aye,” she said, “and hands strong enough to
twist a man’s head off his shoulders, if he takes a mind to.
All the same, he better watch his back around that Walder. Him and
you both. The big one they call little, it comes to me he’s
well named. Big outside, little inside, and mean down to the
bones.”
“He’d never dare hurt me. He’s scared of
Summer, no matter what he says.”
“Then might be he’s not so stupid as he
seems.” Osha was always wary around the direwolves. The day
she was taken, Summer and Grey Wind between them had torn three
wildlings to bloody pieces. “Or might be he is. And that
tastes of trouble too.” She tied up her hair. “You have
more of them wolf dreams?”
“No.” He did not like to talk about the dreams.
“A prince should lie better than that.” Osha
laughed. “Well, your dreams are your business. Mine’s
in the kitchens, and I’d best be getting back before Gage
starts to shouting and waving that big wooden spoon of his. By your
leave, my prince.” She should never have talked about the wolf dreams, Bran thought
as Hodor carried him up the steps to his bedchamber. He fought
against sleep as long as he could, but in the end it took him as it
always did. On this night he dreamed of the weirwood. it was
looking at him with its deep red eyes, calling to him with its
twisted wooden mouth, and from its pale branches the three-eyed
crow came flapping, pecking at his face and crying his name in a
voice as sharp as swords.
The blast of horns woke him. Bran pushed himself onto his side,
grateful for the reprieve. He heard horses and boisterous shouting.
More guests have come, and half-drunk by the noise of them.
Grasping his bars he pulled himself from the bed and over to the
window seat. On their banner was a giant in shattered chains that
told him that these were Umber men, down from the northlands beyond
the Last River.
The next day two of them came together to audience; the
Greatjon’s uncles, blustery men in the winter of their days
with beards as white as the bearskin cloaks they wore. A crow had
once taken Mors for dead and pecked out his eye, so he wore a chunk
of dragonglass in its stead. As Old Nan told the tale, he’d
grabbed the crow in his fist and bitten its head off, so they named
him Crowfood. She would never tell Bran why his gaunt brother
Hother was called Whoresbane.
No sooner had they been seated than Mors asked for leave to wed
Lady Hornwood. “The Greatjon’s the Young Wolf’s
strong right hand, all know that to be true. Who better to protect
the widow’s lands than an Umber, and what Umber better than
me?”
“Lady Donella is still grieving,” Maester Luwin
said.
“I have a cure for grief under my furs.” Mors
laughed. Ser Rodrik thanked him courteously and promised to bring
the matter before the lady and the king.
Hother wanted ships. “There’s wildlings stealing
down from the north, more than I’ve ever seen before. They
cross the Bay of Seals in little boats and wash up on our shores.
The crows in Eastwatch are too few to stop them, and they go to
ground quick as weasels. It’s longships we need, aye, and
strong men to sail them. The Greatjon took too many. Half our
harvest is gone to seed for want of arms to swing the
scythes.”
Ser Rodrik pulled at his whiskers. “You have forests of
tall pine and old oak. Lord Manderly has shipwrights and sailors in
plenty. Together you ought to be able to float enough longships to
guard both your coasts.”
“Manderly?” Mors Umber snorted. “That great
waddling sack of suet? His own people mock him as Lord Lamprey,
I’ve heard. The man can scarce walk. If you stuck a sword in
his belly, ten thousand eels would wriggle out.”
“He is fat,” Ser Rodrik admitted, “but he is
not stupid. You will work with him, or the king will know the
reason why.” And to Bran’s astonishment, the truculent
Umbers agreed to do as he commanded, though not without
grumbling.
While they were sitting at audience, the Glover men arrived from
Deepwood Motte, and a large party of Tallharts from Torrhen’s
Square. Galbart and Robett Glover had left Deepwood in the hands of
Robett’s wife, but it was their steward who came to
Winterfell. “My lady begs that you excuse her absence. Her
babes are still too young for such a journey, and she was loath to
leave them.” Bran soon realized that it was the steward, not
Lady Glover, who truly ruled at Deepwood Motte. The man allowed
that he was at present setting aside only a tenth of his harvest. A
hedge wizard had told him there would be a bountiful spirit summer
before the cold set in, he claimed. Maester Luwin had a number of
choice things to say about hedge wizards. Ser Rodrik commanded the
man to set aside a fifth, and questioned the steward closely about
Lord Hornwood’s bastard, the boy Larence Snow. In the north,
all highborn bastards took the surname Snow. This lad was near
twelve, and the steward praised his wits and courage.
“Your notion about the bastard may have merit,
Bran,” Maester Luwin said after. “One day you will be a
good lord for Winterfell, I think.”
“No I won’t.” Bran knew he would never be a
lord, no more than he could be a knight. “Robb’s to
marry some Frey girl, you told me so yourself, and the Walders say
the same. He’ll have sons, and they’ll be the lords of
Winterfell after him, not me.”
“It may be so, Bran,” Ser Rodrik said, “but I
was wed three times and my wives gave me daughters. Now only Beth
remains to me. My brother Martyn fathered four strong sons, yet
only Jory lived to be a man. When he was slain, Martyn’s line
died with him. When we speak of the morrow nothing is ever
certain.”
Leobald Tallhart had his turn the following day. He spoke of
weather portents and the slack wits of smallfolk, and told how his
nephew itched for battle. “Benfred has raised his own company
of lances. Boys, none older than nineteen years, but every one
thinks he’s another young wolf. When I told them they were
only young rabbits, they laughed at me. Now they call themselves
the Wild Hares and gallop about the country with rabbitskins tied
to the ends of their lances, singing songs of chivalry.”
Bran thought that sounded grand. He remembered Benfred Tallhart,
a big bluff loud boy who had often visited Winterfell with his
father, Ser Helman, and had been friendly with Robb and with Theon
Greyjoy. But Ser Rodrik was clearly displeased by what he heard.
“If the king were in need of more men, he would send for
them,” he said. “Instruct your nephew that he is to
remain at Torrhen’s Square, as his lord father
commanded.”
“I will, ser,” said Leobald, and only then raised
the matter of Lady Hornwood. Poor thing, with no husband to defend
her lands nor son to inherit. His own lady wife was a Hornwood,
sister to the late Lord Halys, doubtless they recalled. “An
empty hall is a sad one. I had a thought to send my younger son to
Lady Donella to foster as her own. Beren is near ten, a likely lad,
and her own nephew. He would cheer her, I am certain, and perhaps
he would even take the name Hornwood . . . ”
“If he were named heir?” suggested Maester
Luwin.
“ . . . so the House might
continue,” finished Leobald.
Bran knew what to say. “Thank you for the notion, my
lord,” he blurted out before Ser Rodrik could speak.
“We will bring the matter to my brother Robb. Oh, and Lady
Hornwood.”
Leobald seemed surprised that he had spoken. “I’m
grateful, my prince,” he said, but Bran saw pity in his pale
blue eyes, mingled perhaps with a little gladness that the cripple
was, after all, not his son. For a moment he hated the man.
Maester Luwin liked him better, though. “Beren Tallhart
may well be our best answer,” he told them when Leobald had
gone. “By blood he is half Hornwood. If he takes his
uncle’s name . . . ”
“ . . . he will still be a boy,”
said Ser Rodrik, “and hard-pressed to hold his lands against
the likes of Mors Umber or this bastard of Roose Bolton’s. We
must think on this carefully. Robb should have our best counsel
before he makes his decision.”
“It may come down to practicalities,” said Maester
Luwin. “Which lord he most needs to court. The riverlands are
part of his realm, he may wish to cement the alliance by wedding
Lady Hornwood to one of the lords of the Trident. A Blackwood,
perhaps, or a Frey—”
“Lady Hornwood can have one of our Freys,” said
Bran. “She can have both of them if she likes.”
“You are not kind, my prince,” Ser Rodrik chided
gently. Neither are the Walders. Scowling, Bran stared down at the table
and said nothing.
In the days that followed, ravens arrived from other lordly
houses, bearing regrets. The bastard of the Dreadfort would not be
joining them, the Mormonts and Karstarks had all gone south with
Robb, Lord Locke was too old to dare the journey, Lady Flint was
heavy with child, there was sickness at Widow’s Watch.
Finally all of the principal vassals of House Stark had been heard
from save for Howland Reed the crannogman, who had not set foot
outside his swamps for many a year, and the Cerwyns whose castle
lay a half day’s ride from Winterfell. Lord Cerwyn was a
captive of the Lannisters, but his son, a lad of fourteen, arrived
one bright, blustery morning at the head of two dozen lances. Bran
was riding Dancer around the yard when they came through the gate.
He trotted over to greet them. Cley Cerwyn had always been a friend
to Bran and his brothers.
“Good morrow, Bran,” Cley called out cheerfully.
“Or must I call you Prince Bran now?”
“Only if you want.”
Cley laughed. “Why not? Everyone else is a king or prince
these days. Did Stannis write Winterfell as well?”
“Stannis? I don’t know.”
“He’s a king now too,” Cley confided.
“He says Queen Cersei bedded her brother, so Joffrey is a
bastard.”
“Joffrey the Illborn,” one of the Cerwyn knights
growled. “Small wonder he’s faithless, with the
Kingslayer for a father.”
“Aye,” said another, “the gods hate incest.
Look how they brought down the Targaryens.”
For a moment Bran felt as though he could not breathe. A giant
hand was crushing his chest. He felt as though he was falling, and
clutched desperately at Dancer’s reins.
His terror must have shown on his face. “Bran?” Cley
Cerwyn said. “Are you unwell? It’s only another
king.”
“Robb will beat him too.” He turned Dancer’s
head toward the stables, oblivious to the puzzled stares the
Cerwyns gave him. His blood was roaring in his ears, and had he not
been strapped onto his saddle he might well have fallen.
That night Bran prayed to his father’s gods for dreamless
sleep. If the gods heard, they mocked his hopes, for the nightmare
they sent was worse than any wolf dream.
“Fly or die!” cried the three-eyed crow as it pecked
at him. He wept and pleaded but the crow had no pity. It put out
his left eye and then his right, and when he was blind in the dark
it pecked at his brow, driving its terrible sharp beak deep into
his skull. He screamed until he was certain his lungs must burst.
The pain was an axe splitting his head apart, but when the crow
wrenched out its beak all slimy with bits of bone and brain, Bran
could see again. What he saw made him gasp in fear. He was clinging
to a tower miles high, and his fingers were slipping, nails
scrabbling at the stone, his legs dragging him down, stupid useless
dead legs. “Help me!” he cried. A golden man appeared
in the sky above him and pulled him up. “The things I do for
love,” he murmured softly as he tossed him out kicking into
empty air.