Rob bid farewell to his young queen thrice. Once in the godswood
before the heart tree, in sight of gods and men. The second time
beneath the portcullis, where Jeyne sent him forth with a long
embrace and a longer kiss. And finally an hour beyond the
Tumblestone, when the girl came galloping up on a well-lathered
horse to plead with her young king to take her along.
Robb was touched by that, Catelyn saw, but abashed as well. The
day was damp and grey, a drizzle had begun to fall, and the last
thing he wanted was to call a halt to his march so he could stand
in the wet and console a tearful young wife in front of half his
army. He speaks her gently, she thought as she watched them
together, but there is anger underneath.
All the time the king and queen were talking, Grey Wind prowled
around them, stopping only to shake the water from his coat and
bare his teeth at the rain. When at last Robb gave Jeyne one final
kiss, dispatched a dozen men to take her back to Riverrun, and
mounted his horse once more, the direwolf raced off ahead as swift
as an arrow loosed from a longbow.
“Queen Jeyne has a loving heart, I see,” said Lame
Lothar Frey to Catelyn. “Not unlike my own sisters. Why, I
would wager a guess that even now Roslin is dancing round the Twins
chanting ‘Lady Tully, Lady Tully, Lady Roslin Tully.’
By the morrow she’ll be holding swatches of Riverrun
red-and-blue to her cheek to picture how she’ll look in her
bride’s cloak.” He turned in the saddle to smile at
Edmure. “But you are strangely quiet, Lord Tully. How do you
feel, I wonder?”
“Much as I did at the Stone Mill just before the warhorns
sounded,” Edmure said, only half in jest.
Lothar gave a good-natured laugh. “Let us pray your
marriage ends as happily, my lord.” And may the gods protect us if it does not. Catelyn pressed her
heels into her horse, leaving her brother and Lame Lothar to each
other’s company.
It had been her who had insisted that Jeyne
remain at Riverrun, when Robb would sooner have kept her by his
side. Lord Walder might well construe the queen’s absence
from the wedding as another slight, yet her presence would have
been a different sort of insult, salt in the old man’s wound.
“Walder Frey has a sharp tongue and a long memory,” she
had warned her son. “I do not doubt that you are strong
enough to suffer an old man’s rebukes as the price of his
allegiance, but you have too much of your father in you to sit
there while he insults Jeyne to her face.”
Robb could not deny the sense of that. Yet all the same, he
resents me for it, Catelyn thought wearily. He misses Jeyne
already, and some part of him blames me for her absence, though he
knows it was good counsel.
Of the six Westerlings who had come with her son from the Crag,
only one remained by his side; Ser Raynald, Jeyne’s brother,
the royal banner-bearer. Robb had dispatched Jeyne’s uncle
Rolph Spicer to deliver young Martyn Lannister to the Golden Tooth
the very day he received Lord Tywin’s assent to the exchange
of captives. It was deftly done. Her son was relieved of his fear
for Martyn’s safety, Galbart Glover was relieved to hear that
his brother Robett had been put on a ship at Duskendale, Ser Rolph
had important and honorable
employment . . . and Grey Wind was at the
king’s side once more. Where he belongs.
Lady Westerling had remained at Riverrun with her children;
Jeyne, her little sister Eleyna, and young Rollam, Robb’s
squire, who complained bitterly about being left. Yet that was wise
as well. Olyvar Frey had squired for Robb previously, and would
doubtless be present for his sister’s wedding; to parade his
replacement before him would be as unwise as it was unkind. As for
Ser Raynald, he was a cheerful young knight who swore that no
insult of Walder Frey’s could possibly provoke him. And let
us pray that insults are all we need to contend with.
Catelyn had her fears on that score, though. Her lord father had
never trusted Walder Frey after the Trident, and she was ever
mindful of that. Queen Jeyne would be safest behind the high,
strong walls of Riverrun, with the Blackfish to protect her. Robb
had even created him a new title, Warden of the Southern Marches.
Ser Brynden would hold the Trident if any man could.
All the same, Catelyn would miss her uncle’s craggy face,
and Robb would miss his counsel. Ser Brynden had played a part in
every victory her son had won. Galbart Glover had taken command of
the scouts and outriders in his place; a good man, loyal and
steady, but without the Blackfish’s brilliance.
Behind Glover’s screen of scouts, Robb’s line of
march stretched several miles. The Greatjon led the van. Catelyn
traveled in the main column, surrounded by plodding warhorses with
steelclad men on their backs. Next came the baggage train, a
procession of wayns laden with food, fodder, camp supplies, wedding
gifts, and the wounded too weak to walk, under the watchful eye of
Ser Wendel Manderly and his White Harbor knights. Herds of sheep
and goats and scrawny cattle trailed behind, and then a little tail
of footsore camp followers. Even farther back was Robin Flint and
the rearguard. There was no enemy in back of them for hundreds of
leagues, but Robb would take no chances.
Thirty-five hundred they were, thirty-five hundred who had been
blooded in the Whispering Wood, who had reddened their swords at
the Battle of the Camps, at Oxcross, Ashemark, and the Crag, and
all through the gold-rich hills of the Lannister west. Aside from
her brother Edmure’s modest retinue of friends, the lords of
the Trident had remained to hold the riverlands while the king
retook the north. Ahead awaited Edmure’s bride and
Robb’s next battle . . . and for me, two
dead sons, an empty bed, and a castle full of ghosts. It was a
cheerless prospect. Brienne, where are you? Bring my girls back to
me, Brienne. Bring them back safe.
The drizzle that had sent them off turned into a soft steady
rain by midday, and continued well past nightfall. The next day the
northmen never saw the sun at all, but rode beneath leaden skies
with their hoods pulled up to keep the water from their eyes. It
was a heavy rain, turning roads to mud and fields to quagmires,
swelling the rivers and stripping the trees of their leaves. The
constant patter made idle chatter more bother than it was worth, so
men spoke only when they had something to say, and that was seldom
enough.
“We are stronger than we seem, my lady,” Lady Maege
Mormont said as they rode. Catelyn had grown fond of Lady Maege and
her eldest daughter, Dacey; they were more understanding than most
in the matter of Jaime Lannister, she had found. The daughter was
tall and lean, the mother short and stout, but they dressed alike
in mail and leather, with the black bear of House Mormont on shield
and surcoat. By Catelyn’s lights, that was queer garb for a
lady, yet Dacey and Lady Maege seemed more comfortable, both as
warriors and as women, than ever the girl from Tarth had been.
“I have fought beside the Young Wolf in every
battle,” Dacey Mormont said cheerfully. “He has not
lost one yet.” No, but he has lost everything else, Catelyn thought, but it
would not do to say it aloud. The northmen did not lack for
courage, but they were far from home, with little enough to sustain
them but for their faith in their young king. That faith must be
protected, at all costs. I must be stronger, she told herself. I
must be strong for Robb. If I despair, my grief will consume me.
Everything would turn on this marriage. If Edmure and Roslin were
happy in one another, if the Late Lord Frey could be appeased and
his power once more wedded to
Robb’s . . . Even then, what chance will
we have, caught between Lannister and Greyjoy? It was a question
Catelyn dared not dwell on, though Robb dwelt on little else. She
saw how he studied his maps whenever they made camp, searching for
some plan that might win back the north.
Her brother Edmure had other cares. “You don’t
suppose all Lord Walder’s daughters look like him, do
you?” he wondered, as he sat in his tall striped pavilion
with Catelyn and his friends.
“With so many different mothers, a few of the maids are
bound to turn up comely,” said Ser Marq Piper, “but why
should the old wretch give you a pretty one?”
“No reason at all,” said Edmure in a glum tone.
It was more than Catelyn could stand. “Cersei Lannister is
comely,” she said sharply. “You’d be wiser to
pray that Roslin is strong and healthy, with a good head and a
loyal heart.” And with that she left them.
Edmure did not take that well. The next day he avoided her
entirely on the march, preferring the company of Marq Piper, Lymond
Goodbrook, Patrek Mallister, and the young Vances. They do not
scold him, except in jest, Catelyn told herself when they raced by
her that afternoon with nary a word. I have always been too hard
with Edmure, and now grief sharpens my every word. She regretted
her rebuke. There was rain enough falling from the sky without her
making more. And was it really such a terrible thing, to want a
pretty wife? She remembered her own childish disappointment, the
first time she had laid eyes on Eddard Stark. She had pictured him
as a younger version of his brother Brandon, but that was wrong.
Ned was shorter and plainer of face, and so somber. He spoke
courteously enough, but beneath the words she sensed a coolness
that was all at odds with Brandon, whose mirths had been as wild as
his rages. Even when he took her maidenhood, their love had more of
duty to it than of passion. We made Robb that night, though; we
made a king together. And after the war, at Winterfell, I had love
enough for any woman, once I found the good sweet heart beneath
Ned’s solemn face. There is no reason Edmure should not find
the same, with his Roslin.
As the gods would have it, their route took them through the
Whispering Wood where Robb had won his first great victory. They
followed the course of the twisting stream on the floor of that
pinched narrow valley, much as Jaime Lannister’s men had done
that fateful night. It was warmer then, Catelyn remembered, the
trees were still green, and the stream did not overflow its banks.
Fallen leaves choked the flow now and lay in sodden snarls among
the rocks and roots, and the trees that had once hidden
Robb’s army had exchanged their green raiment for leaves of
dull gold spotted with brown, and a red that reminded her of rust
and dry blood. Only the spruce and the soldier pines still showed
green, thrusting up at the belly of the clouds like tall dark
spears. More than the trees have died since then, she reflected. On the
night of the Whispering Wood, Ned was still alive in his cell
beneath Aegon’s High Hill, Bran and Rickon were safe behind
the walls of Winterfell. And Theon Greyjoy fought at Robb’s
side, and boasted of how he had almost crossed swords with the
Kingslayer. Would that he had. If Theon had died in place of Lord
Karstark’s sons, how much ill would have been undone?
As they passed through the battleground, Catelyn glimpsed signs
of the carnage that had been; an overturned helm filling with rain,
a splintered lance, the bones of a horse. Stone cairns had been
raised over some of the men who had fallen here, but scavengers had
already been at them. Amidst the tumbles of rock, she spied
brightly colored cloth and bits of shiny metal. Once she saw a face
peering out at her, the shape of the skull beginning to emerge from
beneath the melting brown flesh.
It made her wonder where Ned had come to rest. The silent
sisters had taken his bones north, escorted by Hallis Mollen and a
small honor guard. Had Ned ever reached Winterfell, to be interred
beside his brother Brandon in the dark crypts beneath the castle?
Or did the door slam shut at Moat Cailin before Hal and the sisters
could pass?
Thirty-five hundred riders wound their way along the valley
floor through the heart of the Whispering Wood, but Catelyn Stark
had seldom felt lonelier. Every league she crossed took her farther
from Riverrun, and she found herself wondering whether she would
ever see the castle again. Or was it lost to her forever, like so
much else?
Five days later, their scouts rode back to warn them that the
rising waters had washed out the wooden bridge at Fairmarket.
Galbart Glover and two of his bolder men had tried swimming their
mounts across the turbulent Blue Fork at Ramsford. Two of the
horses had been swept under and drowned, and one of the riders;
Glover himself managed to cling to a rock until they could pull him
in. “The river hasn’t run this high since
spring,” Edmure said. “And if this rain keeps
falling, it will go higher yet.”
“There’s a bridge further upstream, near
Oldstones,” remembered Catelyn, who had often crossed these
lands with her father. “It’s older and smaller, but if
it still stands—”
“It’s gone, my lady,” Galbart Glover said.
“Washed away even before the one at Fairmarket.”
Robb looked to Catelyn. “Is there another
bridge?”
“No. And the fords will be impassable.” She tried to
remember. “If we cannot cross the Blue Fork, we’ll have
to go around it, through Sevenstreams and Hag’s
Mire.”
“Bogs and bad roads, or none at all,” warned Edmure.
“The going will be slow, but we’ll get there, I
suppose.”
“Lord Walder will wait, I’m sure,” said Robb.
“Lothar sent him a bird from Riverrun, he knows we are
coming.”
“Yes, but the man is prickly, and suspicious by
nature,” said Catelyn. “He may take this delay as a
deliberate insult.”
“Very well, I’ll beg his pardon for our tardiness as
well. A sorry king I’ll be, apologizing with every second
breath.” Robb made a wry face. “I hope Bolton got
across the Trident before the rains began. The kingsroad runs
straight north, he’ll have an easy march. Even afoot, he
should reach the Twins before us.”
“And when you’ve joined his men to yours and seen my
brother married, what then?” Catelyn asked him.
“North.” Robb scratched Grey Wind behind an ear.
“By the causeway? Against Moat Cailin?”
He gave her an enigmatic smile. “That’s one way to
go,” he said, and she knew from his tone that he would say no
more. A wise king keeps his own counsel, she reminded herself.
They reached Oldstones after eight more days of steady rain, and
made their camp upon the hill overlooking the Blue Fork, within a
ruined stronghold of the ancient river kings. Its foundations
remained amongst the weeds to show where the walls and keeps had
stood, but the local smallfolk had long ago made off with most of
the stones to raise their barns and septs and holdfasts. Yet in the
center of what once would have been the castle’s yard, a
great carved sepulcher still rested, half hidden in waist-high
brown grass amongst a stand of ash.
The lid of the sepulcher had been carved into a likeness of the
man whose bones lay beneath, but the rain and the wind had done
their work. The king had worn a beard, they could see, but
otherwise his face was smooth and featureless, with only vague
suggestions of a mouth, a nose, eyes, and the crown about the
temples. His hands folded over the shaft of a stone warhammer that
lay upon his chest. Once the warhammer would have been carved with
runes that told its name and history, but all that the centuries
had worn away. The stone itself was cracked and crumbling at the
corners, discolored here and there by spreading white splotches of
lichen, while wild roses crept up over the king’s feet almost
to his chest.
It was there that Catelyn found Robb, standing somber in the
gathering dusk with only Grey Wind beside him. The rain had stopped
for once, and he was bareheaded. “Does this castle have a
name?” he asked quietly, when she came up to him.
“Oldstones, all the smallfolk called it when I was a girl,
but no doubt it had some other name when it was still a hall of
kings.” She had camped here once with her father, on their
way to Seagard. Petyr was with us
too . . .
“There’s a song,” he remembered.
“ ‘Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her
hair.’ ”
“We’re all just songs in the end. If we are
lucky.” She had played at being Jenny that day, had even
wound flowers in her hair. And Petyr had pretended to be her Prince
of Dragonflies. Catelyn could not have been more than twelve, Petyr
just a boy.
Robb studied the sepulcher. “Whose grave is
this?”
“Here lies Tristifer, the Fourth of His Name, King of the
Rivers and the Hills.” Her father had told her his story
once. “He ruled from the Trident to the Neck, thousands of
years before Jenny and her prince, in the days when the kingdoms of
the First Men were falling one after the other before the onslaught
of the Andals. The Hammer of justice, they called him. He fought a
hundred battles and won nine-and-ninety, or so the singers say, and
when he raised this castle it was the strongest in Westeros.”
She put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “He died in his
hundredth battle, when seven Andal kings joined forces against him.
The fifth Tristifer was not his equal, and soon the kingdom was
lost, and then the castle, and last of all the line. With Tristifer
the Fifth died House Mudd, that had ruled the riverlands for a
thousand years before the Andals came.”
“His heir failed him.” Robb ran a hand over the
rough weathered stone. “I had hoped to leave Jeyne with
child . . . we tried often enough, but
I’m not certain . . . ”
“It does not always happen the first time.” Though
it did with you. “Nor even the hundredth. You are very
young.”
“Young, and a king,” he said. “A king must
have an heir. If I should die in my next battle, the kingdom must
not die with me. By law Sansa is next in line of succession, so
Winterfell and the north would pass to her.” His mouth
tightened. “To her, and her lord husband. Tyrion Lannister. I
cannot allow that. I will not allow that. That dwarf must never
have the north.”
“No,” Catelyn agreed. “You must name another
heir, until such time as Jeyne gives you a son.” She
considered a moment. “Your father’s father had no
siblings, but his father had a sister who married a younger son of
Lord Raymar Royce, of the junior branch. They had three daughters,
all of whom wed Vale lordlings. A Waynwood and a Corbray, for
certain. The youngest . . . it might have been
a Templeton, but . . . ”
“Mother.” There was a sharpness in Robb’s
tone. “You forget. My father had four sons.”
She had not forgotten; she had not wanted to look at it, yet
there it was. “A Snow is not a Stark.”
“Jon’s more a Stark than some lordlings from the
Vale who have never so much as set eyes on Winterfell.”
“Jon is a brother of the Night’s Watch, sworn to take no
wife and hold no lands. Those who take the black serve for
life.”
“So do the knights of the Kingsguard. That did not stop
the Lannisters from stripping the white cloaks from Ser Barristan
Selmy and Ser Boros Blount when they had no more use for them. If I
send the Watch a hundred men in Jon’s place, I’ll wager
they find some way to release him from his vows.” He is set on this. Catelyn knew how stubborn her son could be.
“A bastard cannot inherit.”
“Not unless he’s legitimized by a royal
decree,” said Robb. “There is more precedent for that
than for releasing a Sworn Brother from his oath.”
“Precedent,” she said bitterly. “Yes, Aegon
the Fourth legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed. And how
much pain, grief, war, and murder grew from that? I know you trust
Jon. But can you trust his sons? Or their sons? The Blackfyre
pretenders troubled the Targaryens for five generations, until
Barristan the Bold slew the last of them on the Stepstones. If you
make Jon legitimate, there is no way to turn him bastard again.
Should he wed and breed, any sons you may have by Jeyne will never
be safe.”
“Jon would never harm a son of mine.”
“No more than Theon Greyjoy would harm Bran or
Rickon?”
Grey Wind leapt up atop King Tristifer’s crypt, his teeth
bared. Robb’s own face was cold. “That is as cruel as
it is unfair. Jon is no Theon.”
“So you pray. Have you considered your sisters? What of
their rights? I agree that the north must not be permitted to pass
to the Imp, but what of Arya? By law, she comes after
Sansa . . . your own sister,
trueborn . . . ”
“ . . . and dead. No one has seen or
heard of Arya since they cut Father’s head off. Why do you
lie to yourself? Arya’s gone, the same as Bran and Rickon,
and they’ll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from
her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die
without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had
hoped you would support my choice.”
“I cannot,” she said. “In all else, Robb. In
everything. But not in this . . . this folly.
Do not ask it.”
“I don’t have to. I’m the king.” Robb
turned and walked off, Grey Wind bounding down from the tomb and
loping after him. What have I done? Catelyn thought wearily, as she stood alone by
Tristifer’s stone sepulcher. First I anger Edmure, and now
Robb, but all I have done is speak the truth. Are men so fragile
they cannot bear to hear it? She might have wept then, had not the
sky begun to do it for her. It was all she could do to walk back to
her tent, and sit there in the silence.
In the days that followed, Robb was everywhere and anywhere;
riding at the head of the van with the Greatjon, scouting with Grey
Wind, racing back to Robin Flint and the rearguard. Men said
proudly that the Young Wolf was the first to rise each dawn and the
last to sleep at night, but Catelyn wondered whether he was
sleeping at all. He grows as lean and hungry as his direwolf.
“My lady,” Maege Mormont said to her one morning as
they rode through a steady rain, “you seem so somber. Is
aught amiss?” My lord husband is dead, as is my father. Two of my sons have
been murdered, my daughter has been given to a faithless dwarf to
bear his vile children, my other daughter is vanished and likely
dead, and my last son and my only brother are both angry with me.
What could possibly be amiss? That was more truth than Lady Maege
would wish to hear, however. “This is an evil rain,”
she said instead. “We have suffered much, and there is more
peril and more grief ahead. We need to face it boldly, with horns
blowing and banners flying bravely. But this rain beats us down.
The banners hang limp and sodden, and the men huddle under their
cloaks and scarcely speak to one another. Only an evil rain would
chill our hearts when most we need them to burn hot.”
Dacey Mormont looked up at the sky. “I would sooner have
water raining down on me than arrows.”
Catelyn smiled despite herself. “You are braver than I am,
I fear. Are all your Bear Island women such warriors?”
“She-bears, aye,” said Lady Maege. “We have
needed to be. In olden days the ironmen would come raiding in their
longboats, or wildlings from the Frozen Shore. The men would be off
fishing, like as not. The wives they left behind had to defend
themselves and their children, or else be carried off.”
“There’s a carving on our gate,” said Dacey.
“A woman in a bearskin, with a child in one arm suckling at
her breast. In the other hand she holds a battleaxe. She’s no
proper lady, that one, but I always loved her.”
“My nephew Jorah brought home a proper lady once,”
said Lady Maege. “He won her in a tourney. How she hated that
carving.”
“Aye, and all the rest,” said Dacey. “She had
hair like spun gold, that Lynesse. Skin like cream. But her soft
hands were never made for axes.”
“Nor her teats for giving suck,” her mother said
bluntly.
Catelyn knew of whom they spoke; Jorah Mormont had brought his
second wife to Winterfell for feasts, and once they had guested for
a fortnight. She remembered how young the Lady Lynesse had been,
how fair, and how unhappy. One night, after several cups of wine,
she had confessed to Catelyn that the north was no place for a
Hightower of Oldtown. “There was a Tully of Riverrun who felt
the same once,” she had answered gently, trying to console,
“but in time she found much here she could love.” All lost now, she reflected. Winterfell and Ned, Bran and
Rickon, Sansa, Arya, all gone. Only Robb remains. Had there been
too much of Lynesse Hightower in her after all, and too little of
the Starks? Would that I had known how to wield an axe, perhaps I
might have been able to protect them better.
Day followed day, and still the rain kept falling. All the way
up the Blue Fork they rode, past Sevenstreams where the river
unraveled into a confusion of rills and brooks, then through
Hag’s Mire, where glistening green pools waited to swallow
the unwary and the soft ground sucked at the hooves of their horses
like a hungry babe at its mother’s breast. The going was
worse than slow. Half the wayns had to be abandoned to the muck,
their loads distributed amongst mules and draft horses.
Lord Jason Mallister caught up with them amidst the bogs of
Hag’s Mire. There was more than an hour of daylight remaining
when he rode up with his column, but Robb called a halt at once,
and Ser Raynald Westerling came to escort Catelyn to the
king’s tent. She found her son seated beside a brazier, a map
across his lap. Grey Wind slept at his feet. The Greatjon was with
him, along with Galbart Glover, Maege Mormont, Edmure, and a man
that Catelyn did not know, a fleshy balding man with a cringing
look to him. No lordling, this one, she knew the moment she laid
eyes on the stranger. Not even a warrior.
Jason Mallister rose to offer Catelyn his seat. His hair had
almost as much white in it as brown, but the Lord of Seagard was
still a handsome man; tall and lean, with a chiseled clean-shaven
face, high cheekbones, and fierce blue-grey eyes. “Lady
Stark, it is ever a pleasure. I bring good tidings, I
hope.”
“We are in sore need of some, my lord.” She sat,
listening to the rain patter down noisily against the canvas
overhead.
Robb waited for Ser Raynald to close the tent flap. “The
gods have heard our prayers, my lords. Lord Jason has brought us
the captain of the Myraham, a merchanter out of Oldtown. Captain,
tell them what you told me.”
“Aye, Your Grace.” He licked his thick lips
nervously. “My last port of call afore Seagard, that was
Lordsport on Pyke. The ironmen kept me there more’n half a
year, they did. King Balon’s command. Only, well, the long
and the short of it is, he’s dead.”
“Balon Greyjoy?” Catelyn’s heart skipped a
beat. “You are telling us that Balon Greyjoy is
dead?”
The shabby little captain nodded. “You know how
Pyke’s built on a headland, and part on rocks and islands off
the shore, with bridges between? The way I heard it in Lordsport,
there was a blow coming in from the west, rain and thunder, and old
King Balon was crossing one of them bridges when the wind got hold
of it and just tore the thing to pieces. He washed up two days
later, all bloated and broken. Crabs ate his eyes, I
hear.”
The Greatjon laughed. “King crabs, I hope, to sup upon
such royal jelly, eh?”
The captain bobbed his head. “Aye, but that’s not
all of it, no!” He leaned forward. “The brother’s
back.”
“Victarion?” asked Galbart Glover, surprised.
“Euron. Crow’s Eye, they call him, as black a pirate
as ever raised a sail. He’s been gone for years, but Lord
Balon was no sooner cold than there he was, sailing into Lordsport
in his Silence. Black sails and a red hull, and crewed by mutes.
He’d been to Asshai and back, I heard. Wherever he was,
though, he’s home now, and he marched right into Pyke and sat
his arse in the Seastone Chair, and drowned Lord Botley in a cask
of seawater when he objected. That was when I ran back to Myraham
and slipped anchor, hoping I could get away whilst things were
confused. And so I did, and here I am.”
“Captain,” said Robb when the man was done,
“you have my thanks, and you will not go unrewarded. Lord
Jason will take you back to your ship when we are done. Pray wait
outside.”
“That I will, Your Grace. That I will.”
No sooner had he left the king’s pavilion than the
Greatjon began to laugh, but Robb silenced him with a look.
“Euron Greyjoy is no man’s notion of a king, if half of
what Theon said of him was true. Theon is the rightful heir, unless
he’s dead . . . but Victarion commands
the Iron Fleet. I can’t believe he would remain at Moat
Cailin while Euron Crow’s Eye holds the Seastone Chair. He
has to go back.”
“There’s a daughter as well,” Galbart Glover
reminded him. “The one who holds Deepwood Motte, and
Robett’s wife and child.”
“If she stays at Deepwood Motte that’s all she can
hope to hold,” said Robb. “What’s true for the
brothers is even more true for her. She will need to sail home to
oust Euron and press her own claim.” Her son turned to Lord
Jason Mallister. “You have a fleet at Seagard?”
“A fleet, Your Grace? Half a dozen longships and two war
galleys. Enough to defend my own shores against raiders, but I
could not hope to meet the Iron Fleet in battle.”
“Nor would I ask it of you. The ironborn will be setting
sail toward Pyke, I expect. Theon told me how his people think.
Every captain a king on his own deck. They will all want a voice in
the succession. My lord, I need two of your longships to sail
around the Cape of Eagles and up the Neck to Greywater
Watch.”
Lord Jason hesitated. “A dozen streams drain the wetwood,
all shallow, silty, and uncharted. I would not even call them
rivers. The channels are ever drifting and changing. There are
endless sandbars, deadfalls, and tangles of rotting trees. And
Greywater Watch moves. How are my ships to find it?”
“Go upriver flying my banner. The crannogmen will find
you. I want two ships to double the chances of my message reaching
Howland Reed. Lady Maege shall go on one, Galbart on the
second.” He turned to the two he’d named.
“You’ll carry letters for those lords of mine who
remain in the north, but all the commands within will be false, in
case you have the misfortune to be taken. If that happens, you must
tell them that you were sailing for the north. Back to Bear Island,
or for the Stony Shore.” He tapped a finger on the map.
“Moat Cailin is the key. Lord Balon knew that, which is why
he sent his brother Victarion there with the hard heart of the
Greyjoy strength.”
“Succession squabbles or no, the ironborn are not such
fools as to abandon Moat Cailin,” said Lady Maege.
“No,” Robb admitted. “Victarion will leave the
best part of his garrison, I’d guess. Every man he takes will
be one less man we need to fight, however. And he will take many of
his captains, count on that. The leaders. He will need such men to
speak for him if he hopes to sit the Seastone Chair.”
“You cannot mean to attack up the causeway, Your
Grace,” said Galbart Glover. “The approaches are too
narrow. There is no way to deploy. No one has ever taken the
Moat.”
“From the south,” said Robb. “But if we can
attack from the north and west simultaneously, and take the ironmen
in the rear while they are beating off what they think is my main
thrust up the causeway, then we have a chance. Once I link up with
Lord Bolton and the Freys, I will have more than twelve thousand
men. I mean to divide them into three battles and start up the
causeway a half-day apart. If the Greyjoys have eyes south of the
Neck, they will see my whole strength rushing headlong at Moat
Cailin.
“Roose Bolton will have the rearguard, while I command the
center. Greatjon, you shall lead the van against Moat Cailin. Your
attack must be so fierce that the ironborn have no leisure to
wonder if anyone is creeping down on them from the
north.”
The Greatjon chuckled. “Your creepers best come fast, or
my men will swarm those walls and win the Moat before you show your
face. I’ll make a gift of it to you when you come dawdling
up.”
“That’s a gift I should be glad to have,” said
Robb.
Edmure was frowning. “You talk of attacking the ironmen in
the rear, sire, but how do you mean to get north of
them?”
“There are ways through the Neck that are not on any map,
Uncle. Ways known only to the crannogmen—narrow trails between
the bogs, and wet roads through the reeds that only boats can
follow.” He turned to his two messengers. “Tell Howland
Reed that he is to send guides to me, two days after I have started
up the causeway. To the center battle, where my own standard flies.
Three hosts will leave the Twins, but only two will reach Moat
Cailin. Mine own battle will melt away into the Neck, to reemerge
on the Fever. If we move swiftly once my uncle’s wed, we can
all be in position by year’s end. We will fall upon the Moat
from three sides on the first day of the new century, as the
ironmen are waking with hammers beating at their heads from the
mead they’ll quaff the night before.”
“I like this plan,” said the Greatjon. “I like
it well.”
Galbart Glover rubbed his mouth. “There are risks. If the
crannogmen should fail you . . . ”
“We will be no worse than before. But they will not fail.
My father knew the worth of Howland Reed.” Robb rolled up the
map, and only then looked at Catelyn. “Mother.”
She tensed. “Do you have some part in this for
me?”
“Your part is to stay safe. Our journey through the Neck
will be dangerous, and naught but battle awaits us in the north.
But Lord Mallister has kindly offered to keep you safe at Seagard
until the war is done. You will be comfortable there, I
know.” Is this my punishment for opposing him about Jon Snow? Or for
being a woman, and worse, a mother? It took her a moment to realize
that they were all watching her. They had known, she realized.
Catelyn should not have been surprised. She had won no friends by
freeing the Kingslayer, and more than once she had heard the
Greatjon say that women had no place on a battlefield.
Her anger must have blazed across her face, because Galbart
Glover spoke up before she said a word. “My lady, His Grace
is wise. It’s best you do not come with us.”
“Seagard will be brightened by your presence, Lady
Catelyn,” said Lord Jason Mallister.
“You would make me a prisoner,” she said.
“An honored guest,” Lord Jason insisted.
Catelyn turned to her son. “I mean no offense to Lord
Jason,” she said stiffly, “but if I cannot continue on
with you, I would sooner return to Riverrun.”
“I left my wife at Riverrun. I want my mother elsewhere.
If you keep all your treasures in one purse, you only make it
easier for those who would rob you. After the wedding, you shall go
to Seagard, that is my royal command.” Robb stood, and as
quick as that, her fate was settled. He picked up a sheet of
parchment. “One more matter. Lord Balon has left chaos in his
wake, we hope. I would not do the same. Yet I have no son as yet,
my brothers Bran and Rickon are dead, and my sister is wed to a
Lannister. I’ve thought long and hard about who might follow
me. I command you now as my true and loyal lords to fix your seals
to this document as witnesses to my decision.” A king indeed, Catelyn thought, defeated. She could only hope
that the trap he’d planned for Moat Cailin worked as well as
the one in which he’d just caught her.
Rob bid farewell to his young queen thrice. Once in the godswood
before the heart tree, in sight of gods and men. The second time
beneath the portcullis, where Jeyne sent him forth with a long
embrace and a longer kiss. And finally an hour beyond the
Tumblestone, when the girl came galloping up on a well-lathered
horse to plead with her young king to take her along.
Robb was touched by that, Catelyn saw, but abashed as well. The
day was damp and grey, a drizzle had begun to fall, and the last
thing he wanted was to call a halt to his march so he could stand
in the wet and console a tearful young wife in front of half his
army. He speaks her gently, she thought as she watched them
together, but there is anger underneath.
All the time the king and queen were talking, Grey Wind prowled
around them, stopping only to shake the water from his coat and
bare his teeth at the rain. When at last Robb gave Jeyne one final
kiss, dispatched a dozen men to take her back to Riverrun, and
mounted his horse once more, the direwolf raced off ahead as swift
as an arrow loosed from a longbow.
“Queen Jeyne has a loving heart, I see,” said Lame
Lothar Frey to Catelyn. “Not unlike my own sisters. Why, I
would wager a guess that even now Roslin is dancing round the Twins
chanting ‘Lady Tully, Lady Tully, Lady Roslin Tully.’
By the morrow she’ll be holding swatches of Riverrun
red-and-blue to her cheek to picture how she’ll look in her
bride’s cloak.” He turned in the saddle to smile at
Edmure. “But you are strangely quiet, Lord Tully. How do you
feel, I wonder?”
“Much as I did at the Stone Mill just before the warhorns
sounded,” Edmure said, only half in jest.
Lothar gave a good-natured laugh. “Let us pray your
marriage ends as happily, my lord.” And may the gods protect us if it does not. Catelyn pressed her
heels into her horse, leaving her brother and Lame Lothar to each
other’s company.
It had been her who had insisted that Jeyne
remain at Riverrun, when Robb would sooner have kept her by his
side. Lord Walder might well construe the queen’s absence
from the wedding as another slight, yet her presence would have
been a different sort of insult, salt in the old man’s wound.
“Walder Frey has a sharp tongue and a long memory,” she
had warned her son. “I do not doubt that you are strong
enough to suffer an old man’s rebukes as the price of his
allegiance, but you have too much of your father in you to sit
there while he insults Jeyne to her face.”
Robb could not deny the sense of that. Yet all the same, he
resents me for it, Catelyn thought wearily. He misses Jeyne
already, and some part of him blames me for her absence, though he
knows it was good counsel.
Of the six Westerlings who had come with her son from the Crag,
only one remained by his side; Ser Raynald, Jeyne’s brother,
the royal banner-bearer. Robb had dispatched Jeyne’s uncle
Rolph Spicer to deliver young Martyn Lannister to the Golden Tooth
the very day he received Lord Tywin’s assent to the exchange
of captives. It was deftly done. Her son was relieved of his fear
for Martyn’s safety, Galbart Glover was relieved to hear that
his brother Robett had been put on a ship at Duskendale, Ser Rolph
had important and honorable
employment . . . and Grey Wind was at the
king’s side once more. Where he belongs.
Lady Westerling had remained at Riverrun with her children;
Jeyne, her little sister Eleyna, and young Rollam, Robb’s
squire, who complained bitterly about being left. Yet that was wise
as well. Olyvar Frey had squired for Robb previously, and would
doubtless be present for his sister’s wedding; to parade his
replacement before him would be as unwise as it was unkind. As for
Ser Raynald, he was a cheerful young knight who swore that no
insult of Walder Frey’s could possibly provoke him. And let
us pray that insults are all we need to contend with.
Catelyn had her fears on that score, though. Her lord father had
never trusted Walder Frey after the Trident, and she was ever
mindful of that. Queen Jeyne would be safest behind the high,
strong walls of Riverrun, with the Blackfish to protect her. Robb
had even created him a new title, Warden of the Southern Marches.
Ser Brynden would hold the Trident if any man could.
All the same, Catelyn would miss her uncle’s craggy face,
and Robb would miss his counsel. Ser Brynden had played a part in
every victory her son had won. Galbart Glover had taken command of
the scouts and outriders in his place; a good man, loyal and
steady, but without the Blackfish’s brilliance.
Behind Glover’s screen of scouts, Robb’s line of
march stretched several miles. The Greatjon led the van. Catelyn
traveled in the main column, surrounded by plodding warhorses with
steelclad men on their backs. Next came the baggage train, a
procession of wayns laden with food, fodder, camp supplies, wedding
gifts, and the wounded too weak to walk, under the watchful eye of
Ser Wendel Manderly and his White Harbor knights. Herds of sheep
and goats and scrawny cattle trailed behind, and then a little tail
of footsore camp followers. Even farther back was Robin Flint and
the rearguard. There was no enemy in back of them for hundreds of
leagues, but Robb would take no chances.
Thirty-five hundred they were, thirty-five hundred who had been
blooded in the Whispering Wood, who had reddened their swords at
the Battle of the Camps, at Oxcross, Ashemark, and the Crag, and
all through the gold-rich hills of the Lannister west. Aside from
her brother Edmure’s modest retinue of friends, the lords of
the Trident had remained to hold the riverlands while the king
retook the north. Ahead awaited Edmure’s bride and
Robb’s next battle . . . and for me, two
dead sons, an empty bed, and a castle full of ghosts. It was a
cheerless prospect. Brienne, where are you? Bring my girls back to
me, Brienne. Bring them back safe.
The drizzle that had sent them off turned into a soft steady
rain by midday, and continued well past nightfall. The next day the
northmen never saw the sun at all, but rode beneath leaden skies
with their hoods pulled up to keep the water from their eyes. It
was a heavy rain, turning roads to mud and fields to quagmires,
swelling the rivers and stripping the trees of their leaves. The
constant patter made idle chatter more bother than it was worth, so
men spoke only when they had something to say, and that was seldom
enough.
“We are stronger than we seem, my lady,” Lady Maege
Mormont said as they rode. Catelyn had grown fond of Lady Maege and
her eldest daughter, Dacey; they were more understanding than most
in the matter of Jaime Lannister, she had found. The daughter was
tall and lean, the mother short and stout, but they dressed alike
in mail and leather, with the black bear of House Mormont on shield
and surcoat. By Catelyn’s lights, that was queer garb for a
lady, yet Dacey and Lady Maege seemed more comfortable, both as
warriors and as women, than ever the girl from Tarth had been.
“I have fought beside the Young Wolf in every
battle,” Dacey Mormont said cheerfully. “He has not
lost one yet.” No, but he has lost everything else, Catelyn thought, but it
would not do to say it aloud. The northmen did not lack for
courage, but they were far from home, with little enough to sustain
them but for their faith in their young king. That faith must be
protected, at all costs. I must be stronger, she told herself. I
must be strong for Robb. If I despair, my grief will consume me.
Everything would turn on this marriage. If Edmure and Roslin were
happy in one another, if the Late Lord Frey could be appeased and
his power once more wedded to
Robb’s . . . Even then, what chance will
we have, caught between Lannister and Greyjoy? It was a question
Catelyn dared not dwell on, though Robb dwelt on little else. She
saw how he studied his maps whenever they made camp, searching for
some plan that might win back the north.
Her brother Edmure had other cares. “You don’t
suppose all Lord Walder’s daughters look like him, do
you?” he wondered, as he sat in his tall striped pavilion
with Catelyn and his friends.
“With so many different mothers, a few of the maids are
bound to turn up comely,” said Ser Marq Piper, “but why
should the old wretch give you a pretty one?”
“No reason at all,” said Edmure in a glum tone.
It was more than Catelyn could stand. “Cersei Lannister is
comely,” she said sharply. “You’d be wiser to
pray that Roslin is strong and healthy, with a good head and a
loyal heart.” And with that she left them.
Edmure did not take that well. The next day he avoided her
entirely on the march, preferring the company of Marq Piper, Lymond
Goodbrook, Patrek Mallister, and the young Vances. They do not
scold him, except in jest, Catelyn told herself when they raced by
her that afternoon with nary a word. I have always been too hard
with Edmure, and now grief sharpens my every word. She regretted
her rebuke. There was rain enough falling from the sky without her
making more. And was it really such a terrible thing, to want a
pretty wife? She remembered her own childish disappointment, the
first time she had laid eyes on Eddard Stark. She had pictured him
as a younger version of his brother Brandon, but that was wrong.
Ned was shorter and plainer of face, and so somber. He spoke
courteously enough, but beneath the words she sensed a coolness
that was all at odds with Brandon, whose mirths had been as wild as
his rages. Even when he took her maidenhood, their love had more of
duty to it than of passion. We made Robb that night, though; we
made a king together. And after the war, at Winterfell, I had love
enough for any woman, once I found the good sweet heart beneath
Ned’s solemn face. There is no reason Edmure should not find
the same, with his Roslin.
As the gods would have it, their route took them through the
Whispering Wood where Robb had won his first great victory. They
followed the course of the twisting stream on the floor of that
pinched narrow valley, much as Jaime Lannister’s men had done
that fateful night. It was warmer then, Catelyn remembered, the
trees were still green, and the stream did not overflow its banks.
Fallen leaves choked the flow now and lay in sodden snarls among
the rocks and roots, and the trees that had once hidden
Robb’s army had exchanged their green raiment for leaves of
dull gold spotted with brown, and a red that reminded her of rust
and dry blood. Only the spruce and the soldier pines still showed
green, thrusting up at the belly of the clouds like tall dark
spears. More than the trees have died since then, she reflected. On the
night of the Whispering Wood, Ned was still alive in his cell
beneath Aegon’s High Hill, Bran and Rickon were safe behind
the walls of Winterfell. And Theon Greyjoy fought at Robb’s
side, and boasted of how he had almost crossed swords with the
Kingslayer. Would that he had. If Theon had died in place of Lord
Karstark’s sons, how much ill would have been undone?
As they passed through the battleground, Catelyn glimpsed signs
of the carnage that had been; an overturned helm filling with rain,
a splintered lance, the bones of a horse. Stone cairns had been
raised over some of the men who had fallen here, but scavengers had
already been at them. Amidst the tumbles of rock, she spied
brightly colored cloth and bits of shiny metal. Once she saw a face
peering out at her, the shape of the skull beginning to emerge from
beneath the melting brown flesh.
It made her wonder where Ned had come to rest. The silent
sisters had taken his bones north, escorted by Hallis Mollen and a
small honor guard. Had Ned ever reached Winterfell, to be interred
beside his brother Brandon in the dark crypts beneath the castle?
Or did the door slam shut at Moat Cailin before Hal and the sisters
could pass?
Thirty-five hundred riders wound their way along the valley
floor through the heart of the Whispering Wood, but Catelyn Stark
had seldom felt lonelier. Every league she crossed took her farther
from Riverrun, and she found herself wondering whether she would
ever see the castle again. Or was it lost to her forever, like so
much else?
Five days later, their scouts rode back to warn them that the
rising waters had washed out the wooden bridge at Fairmarket.
Galbart Glover and two of his bolder men had tried swimming their
mounts across the turbulent Blue Fork at Ramsford. Two of the
horses had been swept under and drowned, and one of the riders;
Glover himself managed to cling to a rock until they could pull him
in. “The river hasn’t run this high since
spring,” Edmure said. “And if this rain keeps
falling, it will go higher yet.”
“There’s a bridge further upstream, near
Oldstones,” remembered Catelyn, who had often crossed these
lands with her father. “It’s older and smaller, but if
it still stands—”
“It’s gone, my lady,” Galbart Glover said.
“Washed away even before the one at Fairmarket.”
Robb looked to Catelyn. “Is there another
bridge?”
“No. And the fords will be impassable.” She tried to
remember. “If we cannot cross the Blue Fork, we’ll have
to go around it, through Sevenstreams and Hag’s
Mire.”
“Bogs and bad roads, or none at all,” warned Edmure.
“The going will be slow, but we’ll get there, I
suppose.”
“Lord Walder will wait, I’m sure,” said Robb.
“Lothar sent him a bird from Riverrun, he knows we are
coming.”
“Yes, but the man is prickly, and suspicious by
nature,” said Catelyn. “He may take this delay as a
deliberate insult.”
“Very well, I’ll beg his pardon for our tardiness as
well. A sorry king I’ll be, apologizing with every second
breath.” Robb made a wry face. “I hope Bolton got
across the Trident before the rains began. The kingsroad runs
straight north, he’ll have an easy march. Even afoot, he
should reach the Twins before us.”
“And when you’ve joined his men to yours and seen my
brother married, what then?” Catelyn asked him.
“North.” Robb scratched Grey Wind behind an ear.
“By the causeway? Against Moat Cailin?”
He gave her an enigmatic smile. “That’s one way to
go,” he said, and she knew from his tone that he would say no
more. A wise king keeps his own counsel, she reminded herself.
They reached Oldstones after eight more days of steady rain, and
made their camp upon the hill overlooking the Blue Fork, within a
ruined stronghold of the ancient river kings. Its foundations
remained amongst the weeds to show where the walls and keeps had
stood, but the local smallfolk had long ago made off with most of
the stones to raise their barns and septs and holdfasts. Yet in the
center of what once would have been the castle’s yard, a
great carved sepulcher still rested, half hidden in waist-high
brown grass amongst a stand of ash.
The lid of the sepulcher had been carved into a likeness of the
man whose bones lay beneath, but the rain and the wind had done
their work. The king had worn a beard, they could see, but
otherwise his face was smooth and featureless, with only vague
suggestions of a mouth, a nose, eyes, and the crown about the
temples. His hands folded over the shaft of a stone warhammer that
lay upon his chest. Once the warhammer would have been carved with
runes that told its name and history, but all that the centuries
had worn away. The stone itself was cracked and crumbling at the
corners, discolored here and there by spreading white splotches of
lichen, while wild roses crept up over the king’s feet almost
to his chest.
It was there that Catelyn found Robb, standing somber in the
gathering dusk with only Grey Wind beside him. The rain had stopped
for once, and he was bareheaded. “Does this castle have a
name?” he asked quietly, when she came up to him.
“Oldstones, all the smallfolk called it when I was a girl,
but no doubt it had some other name when it was still a hall of
kings.” She had camped here once with her father, on their
way to Seagard. Petyr was with us
too . . .
“There’s a song,” he remembered.
“ ‘Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her
hair.’ ”
“We’re all just songs in the end. If we are
lucky.” She had played at being Jenny that day, had even
wound flowers in her hair. And Petyr had pretended to be her Prince
of Dragonflies. Catelyn could not have been more than twelve, Petyr
just a boy.
Robb studied the sepulcher. “Whose grave is
this?”
“Here lies Tristifer, the Fourth of His Name, King of the
Rivers and the Hills.” Her father had told her his story
once. “He ruled from the Trident to the Neck, thousands of
years before Jenny and her prince, in the days when the kingdoms of
the First Men were falling one after the other before the onslaught
of the Andals. The Hammer of justice, they called him. He fought a
hundred battles and won nine-and-ninety, or so the singers say, and
when he raised this castle it was the strongest in Westeros.”
She put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “He died in his
hundredth battle, when seven Andal kings joined forces against him.
The fifth Tristifer was not his equal, and soon the kingdom was
lost, and then the castle, and last of all the line. With Tristifer
the Fifth died House Mudd, that had ruled the riverlands for a
thousand years before the Andals came.”
“His heir failed him.” Robb ran a hand over the
rough weathered stone. “I had hoped to leave Jeyne with
child . . . we tried often enough, but
I’m not certain . . . ”
“It does not always happen the first time.” Though
it did with you. “Nor even the hundredth. You are very
young.”
“Young, and a king,” he said. “A king must
have an heir. If I should die in my next battle, the kingdom must
not die with me. By law Sansa is next in line of succession, so
Winterfell and the north would pass to her.” His mouth
tightened. “To her, and her lord husband. Tyrion Lannister. I
cannot allow that. I will not allow that. That dwarf must never
have the north.”
“No,” Catelyn agreed. “You must name another
heir, until such time as Jeyne gives you a son.” She
considered a moment. “Your father’s father had no
siblings, but his father had a sister who married a younger son of
Lord Raymar Royce, of the junior branch. They had three daughters,
all of whom wed Vale lordlings. A Waynwood and a Corbray, for
certain. The youngest . . . it might have been
a Templeton, but . . . ”
“Mother.” There was a sharpness in Robb’s
tone. “You forget. My father had four sons.”
She had not forgotten; she had not wanted to look at it, yet
there it was. “A Snow is not a Stark.”
“Jon’s more a Stark than some lordlings from the
Vale who have never so much as set eyes on Winterfell.”
“Jon is a brother of the Night’s Watch, sworn to take no
wife and hold no lands. Those who take the black serve for
life.”
“So do the knights of the Kingsguard. That did not stop
the Lannisters from stripping the white cloaks from Ser Barristan
Selmy and Ser Boros Blount when they had no more use for them. If I
send the Watch a hundred men in Jon’s place, I’ll wager
they find some way to release him from his vows.” He is set on this. Catelyn knew how stubborn her son could be.
“A bastard cannot inherit.”
“Not unless he’s legitimized by a royal
decree,” said Robb. “There is more precedent for that
than for releasing a Sworn Brother from his oath.”
“Precedent,” she said bitterly. “Yes, Aegon
the Fourth legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed. And how
much pain, grief, war, and murder grew from that? I know you trust
Jon. But can you trust his sons? Or their sons? The Blackfyre
pretenders troubled the Targaryens for five generations, until
Barristan the Bold slew the last of them on the Stepstones. If you
make Jon legitimate, there is no way to turn him bastard again.
Should he wed and breed, any sons you may have by Jeyne will never
be safe.”
“Jon would never harm a son of mine.”
“No more than Theon Greyjoy would harm Bran or
Rickon?”
Grey Wind leapt up atop King Tristifer’s crypt, his teeth
bared. Robb’s own face was cold. “That is as cruel as
it is unfair. Jon is no Theon.”
“So you pray. Have you considered your sisters? What of
their rights? I agree that the north must not be permitted to pass
to the Imp, but what of Arya? By law, she comes after
Sansa . . . your own sister,
trueborn . . . ”
“ . . . and dead. No one has seen or
heard of Arya since they cut Father’s head off. Why do you
lie to yourself? Arya’s gone, the same as Bran and Rickon,
and they’ll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from
her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die
without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had
hoped you would support my choice.”
“I cannot,” she said. “In all else, Robb. In
everything. But not in this . . . this folly.
Do not ask it.”
“I don’t have to. I’m the king.” Robb
turned and walked off, Grey Wind bounding down from the tomb and
loping after him. What have I done? Catelyn thought wearily, as she stood alone by
Tristifer’s stone sepulcher. First I anger Edmure, and now
Robb, but all I have done is speak the truth. Are men so fragile
they cannot bear to hear it? She might have wept then, had not the
sky begun to do it for her. It was all she could do to walk back to
her tent, and sit there in the silence.
In the days that followed, Robb was everywhere and anywhere;
riding at the head of the van with the Greatjon, scouting with Grey
Wind, racing back to Robin Flint and the rearguard. Men said
proudly that the Young Wolf was the first to rise each dawn and the
last to sleep at night, but Catelyn wondered whether he was
sleeping at all. He grows as lean and hungry as his direwolf.
“My lady,” Maege Mormont said to her one morning as
they rode through a steady rain, “you seem so somber. Is
aught amiss?” My lord husband is dead, as is my father. Two of my sons have
been murdered, my daughter has been given to a faithless dwarf to
bear his vile children, my other daughter is vanished and likely
dead, and my last son and my only brother are both angry with me.
What could possibly be amiss? That was more truth than Lady Maege
would wish to hear, however. “This is an evil rain,”
she said instead. “We have suffered much, and there is more
peril and more grief ahead. We need to face it boldly, with horns
blowing and banners flying bravely. But this rain beats us down.
The banners hang limp and sodden, and the men huddle under their
cloaks and scarcely speak to one another. Only an evil rain would
chill our hearts when most we need them to burn hot.”
Dacey Mormont looked up at the sky. “I would sooner have
water raining down on me than arrows.”
Catelyn smiled despite herself. “You are braver than I am,
I fear. Are all your Bear Island women such warriors?”
“She-bears, aye,” said Lady Maege. “We have
needed to be. In olden days the ironmen would come raiding in their
longboats, or wildlings from the Frozen Shore. The men would be off
fishing, like as not. The wives they left behind had to defend
themselves and their children, or else be carried off.”
“There’s a carving on our gate,” said Dacey.
“A woman in a bearskin, with a child in one arm suckling at
her breast. In the other hand she holds a battleaxe. She’s no
proper lady, that one, but I always loved her.”
“My nephew Jorah brought home a proper lady once,”
said Lady Maege. “He won her in a tourney. How she hated that
carving.”
“Aye, and all the rest,” said Dacey. “She had
hair like spun gold, that Lynesse. Skin like cream. But her soft
hands were never made for axes.”
“Nor her teats for giving suck,” her mother said
bluntly.
Catelyn knew of whom they spoke; Jorah Mormont had brought his
second wife to Winterfell for feasts, and once they had guested for
a fortnight. She remembered how young the Lady Lynesse had been,
how fair, and how unhappy. One night, after several cups of wine,
she had confessed to Catelyn that the north was no place for a
Hightower of Oldtown. “There was a Tully of Riverrun who felt
the same once,” she had answered gently, trying to console,
“but in time she found much here she could love.” All lost now, she reflected. Winterfell and Ned, Bran and
Rickon, Sansa, Arya, all gone. Only Robb remains. Had there been
too much of Lynesse Hightower in her after all, and too little of
the Starks? Would that I had known how to wield an axe, perhaps I
might have been able to protect them better.
Day followed day, and still the rain kept falling. All the way
up the Blue Fork they rode, past Sevenstreams where the river
unraveled into a confusion of rills and brooks, then through
Hag’s Mire, where glistening green pools waited to swallow
the unwary and the soft ground sucked at the hooves of their horses
like a hungry babe at its mother’s breast. The going was
worse than slow. Half the wayns had to be abandoned to the muck,
their loads distributed amongst mules and draft horses.
Lord Jason Mallister caught up with them amidst the bogs of
Hag’s Mire. There was more than an hour of daylight remaining
when he rode up with his column, but Robb called a halt at once,
and Ser Raynald Westerling came to escort Catelyn to the
king’s tent. She found her son seated beside a brazier, a map
across his lap. Grey Wind slept at his feet. The Greatjon was with
him, along with Galbart Glover, Maege Mormont, Edmure, and a man
that Catelyn did not know, a fleshy balding man with a cringing
look to him. No lordling, this one, she knew the moment she laid
eyes on the stranger. Not even a warrior.
Jason Mallister rose to offer Catelyn his seat. His hair had
almost as much white in it as brown, but the Lord of Seagard was
still a handsome man; tall and lean, with a chiseled clean-shaven
face, high cheekbones, and fierce blue-grey eyes. “Lady
Stark, it is ever a pleasure. I bring good tidings, I
hope.”
“We are in sore need of some, my lord.” She sat,
listening to the rain patter down noisily against the canvas
overhead.
Robb waited for Ser Raynald to close the tent flap. “The
gods have heard our prayers, my lords. Lord Jason has brought us
the captain of the Myraham, a merchanter out of Oldtown. Captain,
tell them what you told me.”
“Aye, Your Grace.” He licked his thick lips
nervously. “My last port of call afore Seagard, that was
Lordsport on Pyke. The ironmen kept me there more’n half a
year, they did. King Balon’s command. Only, well, the long
and the short of it is, he’s dead.”
“Balon Greyjoy?” Catelyn’s heart skipped a
beat. “You are telling us that Balon Greyjoy is
dead?”
The shabby little captain nodded. “You know how
Pyke’s built on a headland, and part on rocks and islands off
the shore, with bridges between? The way I heard it in Lordsport,
there was a blow coming in from the west, rain and thunder, and old
King Balon was crossing one of them bridges when the wind got hold
of it and just tore the thing to pieces. He washed up two days
later, all bloated and broken. Crabs ate his eyes, I
hear.”
The Greatjon laughed. “King crabs, I hope, to sup upon
such royal jelly, eh?”
The captain bobbed his head. “Aye, but that’s not
all of it, no!” He leaned forward. “The brother’s
back.”
“Victarion?” asked Galbart Glover, surprised.
“Euron. Crow’s Eye, they call him, as black a pirate
as ever raised a sail. He’s been gone for years, but Lord
Balon was no sooner cold than there he was, sailing into Lordsport
in his Silence. Black sails and a red hull, and crewed by mutes.
He’d been to Asshai and back, I heard. Wherever he was,
though, he’s home now, and he marched right into Pyke and sat
his arse in the Seastone Chair, and drowned Lord Botley in a cask
of seawater when he objected. That was when I ran back to Myraham
and slipped anchor, hoping I could get away whilst things were
confused. And so I did, and here I am.”
“Captain,” said Robb when the man was done,
“you have my thanks, and you will not go unrewarded. Lord
Jason will take you back to your ship when we are done. Pray wait
outside.”
“That I will, Your Grace. That I will.”
No sooner had he left the king’s pavilion than the
Greatjon began to laugh, but Robb silenced him with a look.
“Euron Greyjoy is no man’s notion of a king, if half of
what Theon said of him was true. Theon is the rightful heir, unless
he’s dead . . . but Victarion commands
the Iron Fleet. I can’t believe he would remain at Moat
Cailin while Euron Crow’s Eye holds the Seastone Chair. He
has to go back.”
“There’s a daughter as well,” Galbart Glover
reminded him. “The one who holds Deepwood Motte, and
Robett’s wife and child.”
“If she stays at Deepwood Motte that’s all she can
hope to hold,” said Robb. “What’s true for the
brothers is even more true for her. She will need to sail home to
oust Euron and press her own claim.” Her son turned to Lord
Jason Mallister. “You have a fleet at Seagard?”
“A fleet, Your Grace? Half a dozen longships and two war
galleys. Enough to defend my own shores against raiders, but I
could not hope to meet the Iron Fleet in battle.”
“Nor would I ask it of you. The ironborn will be setting
sail toward Pyke, I expect. Theon told me how his people think.
Every captain a king on his own deck. They will all want a voice in
the succession. My lord, I need two of your longships to sail
around the Cape of Eagles and up the Neck to Greywater
Watch.”
Lord Jason hesitated. “A dozen streams drain the wetwood,
all shallow, silty, and uncharted. I would not even call them
rivers. The channels are ever drifting and changing. There are
endless sandbars, deadfalls, and tangles of rotting trees. And
Greywater Watch moves. How are my ships to find it?”
“Go upriver flying my banner. The crannogmen will find
you. I want two ships to double the chances of my message reaching
Howland Reed. Lady Maege shall go on one, Galbart on the
second.” He turned to the two he’d named.
“You’ll carry letters for those lords of mine who
remain in the north, but all the commands within will be false, in
case you have the misfortune to be taken. If that happens, you must
tell them that you were sailing for the north. Back to Bear Island,
or for the Stony Shore.” He tapped a finger on the map.
“Moat Cailin is the key. Lord Balon knew that, which is why
he sent his brother Victarion there with the hard heart of the
Greyjoy strength.”
“Succession squabbles or no, the ironborn are not such
fools as to abandon Moat Cailin,” said Lady Maege.
“No,” Robb admitted. “Victarion will leave the
best part of his garrison, I’d guess. Every man he takes will
be one less man we need to fight, however. And he will take many of
his captains, count on that. The leaders. He will need such men to
speak for him if he hopes to sit the Seastone Chair.”
“You cannot mean to attack up the causeway, Your
Grace,” said Galbart Glover. “The approaches are too
narrow. There is no way to deploy. No one has ever taken the
Moat.”
“From the south,” said Robb. “But if we can
attack from the north and west simultaneously, and take the ironmen
in the rear while they are beating off what they think is my main
thrust up the causeway, then we have a chance. Once I link up with
Lord Bolton and the Freys, I will have more than twelve thousand
men. I mean to divide them into three battles and start up the
causeway a half-day apart. If the Greyjoys have eyes south of the
Neck, they will see my whole strength rushing headlong at Moat
Cailin.
“Roose Bolton will have the rearguard, while I command the
center. Greatjon, you shall lead the van against Moat Cailin. Your
attack must be so fierce that the ironborn have no leisure to
wonder if anyone is creeping down on them from the
north.”
The Greatjon chuckled. “Your creepers best come fast, or
my men will swarm those walls and win the Moat before you show your
face. I’ll make a gift of it to you when you come dawdling
up.”
“That’s a gift I should be glad to have,” said
Robb.
Edmure was frowning. “You talk of attacking the ironmen in
the rear, sire, but how do you mean to get north of
them?”
“There are ways through the Neck that are not on any map,
Uncle. Ways known only to the crannogmen—narrow trails between
the bogs, and wet roads through the reeds that only boats can
follow.” He turned to his two messengers. “Tell Howland
Reed that he is to send guides to me, two days after I have started
up the causeway. To the center battle, where my own standard flies.
Three hosts will leave the Twins, but only two will reach Moat
Cailin. Mine own battle will melt away into the Neck, to reemerge
on the Fever. If we move swiftly once my uncle’s wed, we can
all be in position by year’s end. We will fall upon the Moat
from three sides on the first day of the new century, as the
ironmen are waking with hammers beating at their heads from the
mead they’ll quaff the night before.”
“I like this plan,” said the Greatjon. “I like
it well.”
Galbart Glover rubbed his mouth. “There are risks. If the
crannogmen should fail you . . . ”
“We will be no worse than before. But they will not fail.
My father knew the worth of Howland Reed.” Robb rolled up the
map, and only then looked at Catelyn. “Mother.”
She tensed. “Do you have some part in this for
me?”
“Your part is to stay safe. Our journey through the Neck
will be dangerous, and naught but battle awaits us in the north.
But Lord Mallister has kindly offered to keep you safe at Seagard
until the war is done. You will be comfortable there, I
know.” Is this my punishment for opposing him about Jon Snow? Or for
being a woman, and worse, a mother? It took her a moment to realize
that they were all watching her. They had known, she realized.
Catelyn should not have been surprised. She had won no friends by
freeing the Kingslayer, and more than once she had heard the
Greatjon say that women had no place on a battlefield.
Her anger must have blazed across her face, because Galbart
Glover spoke up before she said a word. “My lady, His Grace
is wise. It’s best you do not come with us.”
“Seagard will be brightened by your presence, Lady
Catelyn,” said Lord Jason Mallister.
“You would make me a prisoner,” she said.
“An honored guest,” Lord Jason insisted.
Catelyn turned to her son. “I mean no offense to Lord
Jason,” she said stiffly, “but if I cannot continue on
with you, I would sooner return to Riverrun.”
“I left my wife at Riverrun. I want my mother elsewhere.
If you keep all your treasures in one purse, you only make it
easier for those who would rob you. After the wedding, you shall go
to Seagard, that is my royal command.” Robb stood, and as
quick as that, her fate was settled. He picked up a sheet of
parchment. “One more matter. Lord Balon has left chaos in his
wake, we hope. I would not do the same. Yet I have no son as yet,
my brothers Bran and Rickon are dead, and my sister is wed to a
Lannister. I’ve thought long and hard about who might follow
me. I command you now as my true and loyal lords to fix your seals
to this document as witnesses to my decision.” A king indeed, Catelyn thought, defeated. She could only hope
that the trap he’d planned for Moat Cailin worked as well as
the one in which he’d just caught her.