I'm posting this late again, and I hope it's not too much of a problem. Please let me know! I've also written a lot of the other chapters, but I couldn't sleep; it is what it is. I hope you guys can get some rest. I have work in about four hours, so have a good night. I expect to have two more chapters out by Friday, possibly sooner. Sorry for the inconsistency, my people.
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I made an update after I got off work and listened to the chapter on my drive home. I realized I missed a few things, so I'll fix those. Look out for the next chapter of these quick three tonight! <3.
Robb P O V
Thirteen days below Moat Cailin, the King's Road starts to run out of bog country and onto ground that would hold a tent peg, and I noticed the men's moods lift. The singing got better. The complaints moved from their wet feet to their dry throats. I reminded myself of what I already knew: an army can tell you where it is if you listen to what the men are complaining about.
We camped that night a short day's march north of the Green Fork crossing, on a long rise with good water on the eastern side, and I had the lords in the command tent before the cookfires were properly lit.
It was a warmer, muggy night, as it had been every night since the Neck, the southern air sitting on us like a wet cloak, and the Greatjon had stripped down to a linen shirt that had been white at Winterfell. Rickard Karstark sat with his two eldest standing behind him. Maege Mormont had her boots up on a camp stool with Dacey at her shoulder. Wyman Manderly occupied the reinforced bench that traveled in his own wagon. Roose Bolton had the seat nearest the tent wall, as he always preferred, with Domeric behind him, rolling his eyes and nodding to his father, as though he would rather be outside with his horse or his harp. Jon and Theon stood at my back, with Wylis and Torvin at the tent flap, while Jory stood beside the map.
The map was my own work. I had drawn it over the four evenings before, in charcoal, from above with Hedwig's help.
None of them asked how, as I'd told them that on the road. One at a time, over the long days between Winterfell and the Moat, with a lord beside me and only Jon or Theon to overhear, I told each of them plainly what I was. However, I framed it as a gift or blessing from the Old Gods themselves, bringing the Starks and the North back to their roots and the roots of the weirwoods. I had thought hard about it, but if I could control how people found out rather than having it used against me later, I would choose the former. With people like Littlefinger, Varys, and Melisandre, I wouldn't trust most of my secrets to stay so for long once I marched into the south.
The Greatjon had roared with laughter, and gone on laughing, and said, "Fucking hell, I knew it; my son knew it; your bloody blessed Stark."
Karstark had gone quiet for a time. "I suspected my grandfather had the talent," he had said at last, "and so did my uncle. The very few who knew of it took it as a badge of honor. They said the main line of the Starks used to have it every generation. I'm glad you trusted me with this." His was more sincere than the others, most likely because of his kin who had the gift and that we were distant kin ourselves.
Maege Mormont had only nodded, as though I had told her the weather, but they were an old house on Bear Island, and they remember more than they say, and I also suspected the old Bear at the wall had a closer connection to his talking Raven than he let on.
Wyman Manderly gave me a slow, respectful nod, with open admiration for the talent carried by the house that had allowed him to settle in the North over a thousand years ago, even if he was not too fond of the gift itself.
Roose Bolton would not ride the mammoth, so I told him on the ground, walking our horses a little apart from the column. He said nothing—just a deep stare, then a nod. I had wanted him to know. Not all of it, and not as a threat, only as a fact about his liege lord's son that a careful man would want to weigh. Those five and their heirs, and no one else. The rest of the host believed I had very good scouts, though I knew loose lips would let it out over the course of this campaign; it would seem more rumor than fact.
"The Twins," I said. "Two castles, one on either side of the Green Fork, as near to identical as the builders could make them. Curtain walls, deep moats fed from the river, a barbican and portcullis on each. The bridge between them is stone, wide enough for two wagons abreast, and a tower stands in the middle of the span with its own gates and murder holes. A man who takes the eastern castle has taken half a bridge." I tapped the eastern bank. "The river is running high. The nearest ford worth the name is days upstream; we will cross here, and we will do so as soon as possible."
There are tents on both banks. I make it near four thousand men, a thousand of them mounted. Lord Walder called his banners when the ravens came from Riverrun, and then he sat down on them."
"Four thousand," Karstark said. "And Riverrun is under siege."
"Riverrun is under siege." The ravens had been coming down the Kingsroad for six days with the news, each account a little worse than the last: the Riverlords broken below the Golden Tooth, Jaime Lannister before my grandfather's walls, Lord Tywin with a second and larger host somewhere south of the Trident. None of it had surprised me, and I had been careful to look as though it had. "Lord Frey is sworn to Riverrun. His liege lord's seat is invested, his liege lord's son has called for him, and he has four thousand men counting tolls on a bridge. I'd have you all understand what that means before we ride up to his gate, because it decides how I mean to speak to him."
"It means he's a weasel," said Maege.
"It means he's waiting to see who wins. He was late to the Trident for the same reason, and King Robert never let him forget it, and he has spent sixteen years resenting not being thanked for arriving. He's ninety. He has more sons and daughters than I have captains. Every one of them needs a place, and no great house wants anything to do with them, because no great house has ever needed him badly enough." I looked around the tent. "We need him. He knows it to the inch. He will name a price, and the price will be high, and he will expect me to haggle like a boy who has never bought a horse."
"And you won't," Wyman said. He folded his hands on his belly and watched me with the patience of a man who has done a great deal of buying.
"I'll do two things. First, I'll remind him whose man he is. He is my uncle's bannerman, and my grandfather's before that, and a bannerman who charges his liege's kin a toll to come to his liege's rescue has forgotten something I intend to help him remember. I'll say that plainly, and I'll say it in front of his sons. I'd ask you all to do the same."
"It helps that we do agree with you," said Greatjon.
"Then it should come easily. The second thing is that I'll be generous, in my own time and on my own terms, so that what he gets is a gift from House Stark and not a toll he took off us. That matters. A man who is paid what he demanded learns to demand. I'd rather he learned something else." I turned to the side table, where Jory had set out what I'd asked for. "Here is what I mean to offer, and I'm telling you now because some of it is yours to give, and I'll not promise on any lord's behalf what he hasn't agreed to in this tent."
I gave it to them in order.
"Lord Karstark. I'd ask you to take two Frey children to foster at Karhold — a boy and a girl, of an age to your own should be no trouble. Bran is there already. They'd be raised beside a Stark."
Karstark grunted. "I've room. The girl can go to my Alys. She wants company for her own age." He scratched at his beard. "They'll pray in a sept, I suppose."
"They'll pray with what they have and whenever you give them leave. Lord Manderly — the same of you. White Harbor has a sept and a court and more to teach a young Frey about trade than the Twins ever will."
"A boy and a girl." Wyman considered it for the space of a breath. "My granddaughters will civilize one and terrorize the other. Done."
"I'll take two myself for Winterfell, on the same terms, and my mother will see to them. And I'll take one of his sons or grandsons as a squire." I saw Theon's mouth twitch in a smirk. "I've never had one, as Lord Greyjoy has pointed out."
"You've never needed one," Theon said. "You dress yourself like a stable hand some days."
I smirked. "And you will take a squire for yourself as well, oh great heir Greyjoy kraken of the North."
Theon's smirk faded, though he kept the mirth in his eyes. But the rest of the room laughed.
"Last of the offers for them: there's a daughter named Roslin, sixteen or so. By every account I've heard, she's the gentlest and the prettiest of the Frey brood. I mean to bring her south with us, properly attend, and present her to my uncle Edmure when Riverrun is relieved. I'll not promise Edmure's hand. It isn't mine to promise, and I've not had a word from him in two months. I promise an introduction, and my good word, and Lord Walder has wanted a Tully match since before my mother was born."
Maege laughed. "Poor Edmure."
"Edmure could do a great deal worse, and if I know my uncle, he has been trying to." "Which leaves the matter of a marriage. Lord Frey will want a marriage, a real one, now and not in ten years when a fosterling comes of age." I paused as the next part was the one I had been less sure of.
"Lord Bolton."
Roose lifted his eyes. He had not laughed with the others. He rarely did.
"You've been a widower for some years. I'd ask you to consider a Frey bride. They have many suitable ages, and I'd leave the choice entirely to you. It would bind the Dreadfort to the Crossing, which would mean no small dowry for you either, and it would give Lord Walder one of the North's lord paramount's chief bannermen for a good son, which is more than he has ever had."
The tent was quiet. Every man there knew I was asking the most of the man least inclined to give, and they were curious how it would go.
"I will consider it, my lord," Roose said, in that soft voice that makes men lean in. And that was all he said.
"Thank you. I'd have your answer before we reach the gate, if you can give it." I moved on before the silence deepened. "As for my own hand, it's not mine either. I'm betrothed to Princess Myrcella by King Robert's word and my father's seal, and whatever else has happened in King's Landing, that contract stands until someone with the power to break it does so. If Lord Walder raises it, that's my answer, and I'd thank you all for looking as though that agrees with you too."
"Betrothed to a Lannister," Karstark said, not quite under his breath.
"To a girl of fifteen who is my mother's guest and has wronged no one. It's also a very convenient thing to be when an old lord with forty unwed daughters and granddaughters has the only bridge." Nobody argued. "My sister Arya is not on the table. Neither is Rickon, nor is Bran. If he asks for any of them, I'll refuse him flatly, and I would sooner you hear that from me tonight than be surprised by my manners tomorrow."
"Now I'll enjoy it," said Greatjon.
We went through the rest of it: the order of march to the gate if need be, who would ride forward and who would hold, where the giants would stand. I wanted them seen, and though I did want them near the Frey towers so the Frey horses, which had never smelled a giant or mammoth, could do so, as I talked, Jory wrote it down, and it was full dark when the lords left the tent.
Roose Bolton did not go, however. He sent Domeric, who I shared a nod and a glance with, out ahead of him with a word, and stood with his hands folded until the flap closed behind the last of them. I gave Jon a look, and then Theon. Theon shook his head. I gave Jon another look, and Jon took Theon out by the elbow.
"My lord," Roose said. "A question, if I may."
"Always."
"The Frey women you speak of are an option for me, true enough. I have buried two wives. I am not a young man, and I do not pretend to be one." There was no complaint in it. He might have been reading out a tally. "My son is twenty, unwed, and promised to no one. A match of that kind fits him a good deal better than it fits me, and would bind the two houses just as well. You will surely have thought of that. I am curious why you asked the father."
I had thought of it. I had also thought he would ask, and I had known for a week what I would say, and I still felt my pulse when I said it.
"Because I've another match in mind for Domeric."
His eyes did not change. Nothing in that face ever does. But he waited, which for Roose Bolton is a form of eagerness.
"When this business in the south is finished, my sister Sansa will be bound to no one. Whatever comes of it, there'll be no Baratheon marriage. And I do not think she'll want to live south of the Neck again as long as she lives. She'll want the North, and she'll want to be near home, and the Dreadfort is nearer Winterfell than any other great seat." I kept my voice even. "Domeric is the finest rider I've seen; he is kind to everyone beneath him, and he plays the high harp so well that even the giants sit and listen. My sister has loved songs since she could walk. I want someone kind for her, my lord, and I think it would be a good match, besides, if she agrees to it. I say this as an intention, my lord, not a contract. She'll have her say in it, and she is not here to give it. But you asked why the father and not the son, and that's why."
Roose was silent for some time before speaking, "You think my son, my heir, a Bolton, next for the Dreadfort, a kind enough, caring enough man for your sister Sansa, whom you presume will be troubled after her time in King's Landing." I nodded, hoping I hadn't just caused Domeric hardship with his father.
"A Stark of Winterfell has not wed a Bolton in a very long while," he said.
"That which is true now does not have to stay so," I replied
"Intentions are lighter than contracts." He inclined his head, a small, precise movement. "They have one advantage—nothing in them to break. I will take the Frey girl, my lord. You may tell Lord Walder so."
"I'm grateful."
"I expect you are." It was as near to humor as I have ever heard from him. He went out, and the flap fell, and the tent was mine.
I stood at the map a while longer.
I had meant every word about Domeric. That was the uncomfortable part. He would be good to her. He might be one of the only lords' sons in the Seven Kingdoms. I would say that without reservation, Sansa, who had wanted a prince out of a song, could do worse than a gentleman with a harp and a castle three hundred leagues from Cersei Lannister if she lived. If ten small people in green reached her. I had just bartered a sister who was a hostage in a city I could not reach, without asking her, to a man whose banner is a flayed corpse, and I had done it the same way Father had done it in the crypts with Robert Baratheon. Though I felt a way more guilty about it, I truly did think he could be right for her.
And if that match ever did come about, I would do what I could to ensure Roose Bolton was not alive to witness it.
My own marriage was another matter, and one I had been turning over on the march for longer than I'd have admitted to any man in that tent. It would not be Myrcella, and it would not be a Frey. There is a girl in Highgarden, seventeen, clever in the way that is mistaken for sweetness by everyone she means to have mistaken it, with the grain of the Reach and close to seventy thousand swords behind her. Within a few months, her father would wed her to Renly Baratheon and call her a queen. Not long after that she would be a widow, and Mace Tyrell would be looking for the next crown to set his daughter beside, and the only offer on his table would come from the Lannisters unless someone else could put a better one there.
Mace Tyrell wanted his daughter to be a queen; more importantly, so did Olenna, who would make it so, and it just so happened I was looking to be king with enough power and control to face the White Walkers and whatever was coming from the East. I knew what the Tyrells wanted, and if we both thought we were playing each other, that would suit me just fine.
Then I went to my own tent as our army finished making camp for the night. They had been at it all day, and it had caused a commotion in the twins, but as I ducked under my tent flap I told Torvin not to disturb me unless the camp itself was under assault, and lay down on the cot with Grey Wind across my feet. I had one more fate to change that night, and I did not need to get up to do it.
———
Black Walder Frey's POV
I was on the east wall when the Stark host came into sight, because my great-grandfather wanted a count from someone of our own brood and one who could count well, and that left him less than one would expect for him to choose from.
They came down the kingsroad out of the afternoon haze in a column that never ended. I have seen hosts. I rode to the Trident as a squire, late, with the rest of our family, and I have seen what the river lords can put in a field, and I know what four thousand of ours look like drawn up on a bank. This was something else. The head of it reached the far meadows and began to spread and make camp, orderly, by what looked like companies, with ditches dug in front of tents, and the tail of it was still coming over the rise an hour later. Behind the foot came wagons, more of them than I cared to count.
"Thirty thousand," said Edwyn beside me. My brother had gone the color of tallow.
"More."
"The raven father talked about said twenty."
"The raven father had received from kings landing had mentioned we were to expect a green boy of seventeen with his father in a cell and his sister all but a captive that the green boy would be in a despite dash to King's Landing. Count the banners, Edwyn. That's Umber, Karstark, Manderly, Mormont, Hornwood, Cerwyn, the Flayed Man even. That is the whole North and its hounds." I leaned on the merlon. "The old man is going to piss himself with joy as every one of those northern souls needs our bridge."
Then the front of the column opened out, and I saw what was walking at its head, and for a moment I said nothing clever at all.
I had heard the stories. Everyone had. Pedlars coming down from the Neck this past year had been full of them — giants at Winterfell, giants mending roads, a hairy monster the Stark boy rode about on like a pony — and I had given them what I would give every tale from north of the Neck, where they pray to their trees and lie with their sheep for warmth. A pedlar will tell you anything for a second cup of free drink.
It was the size of a cottage. It was red-brown and shaggy, with two tusks like the curved prows of longships, and a railed box on its back with men in it; down its flank hung a vast Firstman tapestry of a running wolf among white trees. Beside it walked four shapes that my eye kept insisting were men close by and that the wagons behind them kept proving were nothing of the kind. Twelve feet. Fourteen; a few seemed even taller. They carried what looked like literal trees for staves, though looking closely I could tell they had been worked smooth, more like a staff, and they had bows the size of tree limbs on their backs.
"Mother, have mercy," Edwyn whispered next to me. "Oh, Mother, have mercy. Mother, have mercy." Then, quieter still, "Seven help us." Then my brother turned and ran down the wall stairs and back inside the castle, screaming about giants.
The wind was out of the north that afternoon. I have thought about that since. It came down the road ahead of the Starks, over the wall, and into the lower bailey, where a thousand Frey horses were picketed or stabled, and it carried the smell of those things; though to me they were indeed impressive, something I would never think real if I had not seen them myself, but still they had to be made of flesh and skin all the same so they could be killed, but... my thoughts stopped at the sounds of the horses.
I had never heard sounds like the ones that rose from the bailey. Though I guess a horse that smells a wolf would shy away, but a horse that smells something it has no name for, something older than its own fear, I could see why they were going mad. They screamed. Destriers trained to ride down pikes reared, broke their tethers, and went over their own grooms. I saw Ser Hosteen's big grey kick through the side of a stall and come out with half the door hanging on him. I saw a boy go down under a string of palfreys and not get up. Somebody had left the sally gate to the horse meadow unbarred, and forty animals found it at once, and three of them went into the moat. Men ran about with their arms out, shouting ho and stand, as if there were a horse in the world that would heed it.
That set off the rest. On the wall, the few crossbowmen stationed there at the time were making the sign of the star. In the yard, the washerwomen had heard what the sentries were saying or screaming and started shrieking that the snarks had come with the Starks to come for the south, which I suppose was not wrong. The smallfolk from the east bank village, who had been trickling in all day with their pigs and their bundles at the first dust of the column, became a flood, and jammed in the gate with a wagon slewed across it, and the sergeant there began laying about him with a spear butt. And then Septon Donnel started ringing the bell in the sept — the fool, he rang it and rang it, as he would for a fire — and every soul in both castles who had not yet been frightened took it as leave to begin.
It was an hour before anyone had the Twins in hand again, and I will say for the record that the one who did it was Lame Lothar, limping through the bailey with a cudgel and a voice like a drill sergeant, and not any of the knights.
The Starks did not so much as break step. They went on making their camp, ditch and picket and latrine, as if a castle coming apart in front of them were something they saw every day. I noticed their horses stood quiet beside that beast. Their own animals must have gotten used to it by now, I thought. It came to me, not pleasantly, that a man could break a charge of knights without drawing a sword if he brought that animal upwind. I grumbled at that as it came to me that the Stark boy very likely knew it.
———
Lord Walder received the count in the hall, in the great black oak chair with the two towers carved on its back, with his newest and youngest wife standing at his elbow to hold his cup. Joyeuse Erenford is sixteen and has the look of something kept in a cellar. She looked about as happy as the seven before her had.
"Thirty-five thousand," I said. "Near enough. A fifth of it horse. I could see four giants with the vanguard and maybe the same, if not twice, in the rearguard, same with the one beast at the vanguard. The train's well ordered. They're dug in already."
"Heh." My great-grandfather's head wobbled on its pink neck. He is ninety. He looks like something boiled. He has looked like that as long as I have been alive, and he has outlived every man who ever laughed at him, which was not a small number. I have never met anyone I would be less willing to cross, for I knew that in all my life Lord Walder had never once been unable to extract a toll for a crossing. No matter how many hated him or looked down on him, he always took his toll. "Thirty-five thousand. And they all want my bridge. Heh. And my horses ran away, I'm told, with some of my knights, heheh, brave knights with brave horses."
"They'd never smelled the like, my lord," said Ser Stevron. My grandfather is past sixty, grey, tired, and decent. He has been heir to the Twins since before the Conquest, or so it seems to the rest of us. "No horse in the south has."
"I didn't ask what they'd smelled, fool. You would think I could smell it from here; what I smell is that Half of my men shat themselves, and that's only the knights." He took the cup, slopped it, and Joyeuse dabbed at his sagging chins. "Tree-worshippers and giants and a hairy great cow have all come along south behind a stark ha and now my septon wants to know if I mean to let demons cross holy stone. I told him it's my stone and I would have let Harren the Black across it if he paid. Heh."
"Father," said Stevron, "the boy is Hoster Tully's grandson. Riverrun has called —"
"Riverrun has called, Riverrun has called; shut up, you're not lord yet, and Riverrun always calls, and when it isn't calling it's sneering. Did Hoster Tully, that slimy fish, come to my wedding? Any of them? He sent a cask. He calls me the Late Lord Frey; I know he does, don't tell me he doesn't. Well, I'm not so late as he is that sick fish," he said with a cruel smile. He's dying, they tell me, shitting blood in a tower, and I'm still here, and now here's his grandson at my gate with his cap in his hand." The old man's eyes were wet and bright and merry spite. "He'll pay. They'll all pay. I've sons to place. I've daughters. Gods, the daughters. Lothar, the list."
Lame Lothar had it ready. He always has it ready.
"A marriage for the Stark boy himself," Lord Walder said, ticking it off on fingers like knotted twigs. "One of mine. He can have his pick; I'm not ungenerous, there's one or two not so ill to look on. He'll be Lord of Winterfell before the year's out if the Lannisters have any sense, and I want a Frey in his bed when he is. His sister for my Elmar—the young one, the one still in the North. Two of my grandsons to ward at Winterfell. One of my boys to squire for him, and be knighted by him in good time, where men can see. And the toll." He sucked his gums. "We'll think about the toll."
"He is betrothed, my lord," Lothar said. "To the Princess Myrcella. It was cried through the realm."
"Betrothed to the sister of the king he's marching on. Heh. Betrothed to a girl he's holding hostage in his own hall. That's no betrothal, that's a ransom. Contracts break. I've broken better." He flapped a hand at Stevron. "Go and tell that wolf pup. Ride out and tell him Lord Frey bids him welcome and wishes he will come in, sup with me, and hear my terms. And take Black Walder. I want someone who'll tell me how the green boy's face looks, though I bet you will find he will only be courteous."
———
We rode out at dusk under a peace banner, ten of us, and had to change horses once on the way; even then it wasn't enough, and we had to finish meeting them on foot. I have never felt more a fool.
He met us on foot as well, in front of his own pickets, and I will grant it was well staged. The beast stood fifty yards behind him with no chain or tether on it that I could see, eating an entire hayrick with a sort of contemplative greed, and now and then it swung that great head round to look at him, the way a hound checks on its master. The giants sat in a row beyond it like a line of hills. A wolf sat beside him if you could even call it that, and I had to look twice to be sure of what I was seeing, because its head came to just below his shoulder. It was massive, bigger than any wolf has a right to be and bigger than any story the elders used to tell me about dire wolves that were the old Starks ' pets, and it was watching my throat. Two big men stood at his shoulders in grey, one with a mace and one with an axe, and a half-dozen lords stood behind him. I could guess the Greatjon by his bulk, and I could single out Bolton by the flayed man worn coldly and proudly on his person.
And the boy himself. I had expected a boy, but he is taller than even me, with broader shoulders than any boy and even most men I have seen. His hair is red-brown and curly, dark in some places and bright in others, and shaved close on either side of his head. He wears a short red beard that is turning black. He has a scar down the left side of his face from the cheekbone to the jaw, and it looked like an old one. It made him look like a man who had already been tried in combat once and didn't mind the results. His eyes were Tully blue, but they had that Stark ice stare his father was known for, and they swept over each of us in turn without hurry.
Stevron did the courtesies. He does them well. Lord Walder's greetings, Lord Walder's regret at the disorder, Lord Walder's hope that Lord Robb would enter the castle and take bread and salt and meat at his table, where matters might be discussed in comfort.
"My thanks to Lord Walder," said Stark. His voice carried without seeming to be raised. "I'll not come in. I've thirty-six thousand men to see settled, and I do not leave them to sup in another man's hall. Lord Walder is ninety, and I'd not ask him to come out to me. So you and I will speak here, Ser Stevron, and you will carry it to him, and I'll trust you to carry it true. What are his terms?"
Stevron gave them. He gave them as gently as such things can be given. I watched the Stark boy's face, as I had been bidden, and it did nothing at all until Stevron reached the sister, and then it did something very small around the eyes that I did not care for.
When it was done, he was quiet for a moment.
"Ser Stevron. How many men has your father gathered?"
"Some four thousand, my lord."
"And whose banners did he call them under, I wonder?"
Stevron is no fool. He saw where the road went and had no way off it. "He is sworn to Riverrun, my lord."
"He is sworn to Riverrun. My grandfather's seat is besieged. My uncle called his banners two months ago, and the Mallisters came, and the Blackwoods came, and the Brackens came who hate the Blackwoods, and the Pipers and the Vances and the Darrys came, and they bled below the Golden Tooth, and House Frey was not there." He did not raise his voice. "I have marched thirty-six thousand men from the other end of the world to relieve a castle that is twelve days' ride from your gate. I'm not a supplicant at this bridge, ser. I am the help your liege lord's house sent for. And his own bannerman proposes to charge me a toll for it, and asks for my sister in the bargain."
"My lord —"
"I'll answer the terms in order, so there's no confusion in the carrying. My sister Arya is not offered, will not be offered, and if her name is put in front of me again I will take it as an insult to my mother's house, which is the house Lord Walder is sworn to. My mother's home is besieged, your liege lord's own castle, and yet you ask for the hand of their kin. Do not ask for it again. My own hand is pledged to the Princess Myrcella by King Robert's word and my father's seal. I do not break it."
I had been told to watch his face. I had not been told to hold my tongue, and I have never been good at that.
"A pretty pledge," I said. "You're marching on her brother."
Those eyes came round to me like never before. The wolf's did too.
"You'll be Black Walder," he said. "I'm marching to free my father from the men who have seized him. The princess is fifteen. She is a guest under my mother's roof; she has done no wrong to me or mine, and a king and the Hand of the King made the contract between us. If I throw it over the first day it grows inconvenient, then tell me, ser — what is any agreement I make at this bridge worth to your great-grandfather? Would he like to find out how the North treats its contracts before he signs one with me, or after?"
I had nothing to say to that. I am seldom in that condition, and I did not enjoy it.
He turned back to Stevron, and his voice eased by a degree. "I do not quarrel with you, sir. I know what it is to carry another man's words. So carry mine. House Stark is not ungenerous to its friends. At dawn I'll come to the head of the bridge road, and I'll tell Lord Walder's envoy what House Stark offers a friend, freely, as a gift and not a toll. It is more than he expects. It does not include me, and it does not include my sister. And in return I'll have the crossing, and I'll have his levies behind my uncle's banner where they were sworn to be two months ago. The Tullys will remember who came to Riverrun, ser. So will I. I would like to remember that House Frey was late, and not that it was absent."
He inclined his head, exactly as far as courtesy required, and walked back through his pickets. The wolf stayed a moment longer, looking at me. Then it went too.
Behind us, one of the giants said something in a language like stones rolling in a barrel, and the others made a sound I took, after a moment, for laughter.
———
"Heh," said Lord Walder, when Stevron had finished. "Heh. Late and not absent. He's got a tongue, the pup. That's the Tully in him. Definitely didn't come from that cold Ned. Hoster had a tongue before he started shitting blood, ha ha."
He was in his bedchamber by then, high in the east keep, propped on bolsters in a nightshirt, with the girl rubbing some foul liniment into his feet. The shutters stood open on the river side. He always has them open in summer; he always says the night air off the water is what has kept him alive, and no one has ever dared to tell him it is only spite.
"How did his face look?" he asked me.
"Like a man, not a boy, and one who'd already decided," I said. "He's not bluffing. He means to stand on the bannerman's oath and shame us in front of the river lords."
"Of course he's bluffing. They're all bluffing. He can't very well swim thirty-five thousand men across the Green Fork, and he can't storm two castles and a bridge with Tywin Lannister waiting to fall on his arse while he does it, and the rest of them waiting to wipe out his family in the Riverlands. Giants. What will giants do, wade?" He cackled until he coughed, and the girl held the cup for him. "He's seventeen. He's had his own way in the North because his father's name is Stark and they've nothing up there but snow and obedience. He has never once been told no by someone who could make it stick. It'll be good for him. It's a kindness, really hehe ."
"Father," Stevron began.
"Dawn, he says. He'll tell my envoy at dawn. Well, my envoy will be abed at dawn. My envoy will go out at noon the day after tomorrow, perhaps, if the weather's fine, and say Lord Frey is considering. And then we'll let him sit. That great hairy cow eats, doesn't it? Thirty-five thousand men eat. Every day he sits on my bank, his father's a day nearer the headsman I bet, and his grandfather's a day nearer dead, and his price is a day higher—a week. Let him sit a week, and then see if the wolf pup's still so tender of his Lannister betrothal. Heh. He'll be begging me for a daughter come next week he'll even take two. Gods know, we could lose a few open mouths around here"
"And if he remembers it?" Stevron asked quietly. "As he said. If the Tullys remember?"
"Then they'll remember I held the bridge, and they had to come to me. That's all anyone's ever remembered about us, boy. It's all they need to." He waved us out. "Go away. Go and count my horses, if you can find them. Joyeuse, the candle. No — leave the shutters, you stupid girl, how many times."
I looked back from the door. He was already settling down into the bolsters, a bald spotted head on a heap of linen, mouth fallen open, pleased with himself down to the marrow. He had slept on his back with his mouth open, snoring like a saw, for as long as any of his wives can recall, though he has outlived 8 of them.
I went down to count the horses as ordered. We were short sixty-one and two grooms.