The grain shipment from The Twins still hadn't arrived. Though the Lord of Crossing was ninety years old and frail, few people could fool him—fool him completely, from head to toe.
Frey soldiers outside Riverrun were growing fewer by the day. Some left; no one could say whether they were withdrawing or simply running away.
Edmure Tully told Perwyn everything and urged him not to return. "Break the guest right and the gods will curse you," Perwyn said, then took his men to Oldstones.
...
"The Twins still has fifteen hundred men. You're really marching out with only a thousand?" Blackfish looked at Tyrion like he'd gone mad. "If I were Walder Frey, I'd ride out and kill you."
"Lucky for me he isn't you. He doesn't have the guts to come out and fight me," Tyrion said with a grin. "Every man in his house who could command troops is already dead."
A few days later, the land around Riverrun was completely cleared. Farmers finally returned to their fields—one last chance before winter closed in.
Sansa, Arya, and Brienne stayed behind at Riverrun under Edmure's care. The remaining fifteen hundred Lannister soldiers set out in full force toward The Twins.
Great Jon led the vanguard of his own accord, with Gendry assisting him. Tyrion and Brynden marched with the main host: a large body of well-armed infantry. Behind them came the baggage train—countless wagons packed with food, fodder, supplies, gifts, and wounded men—guarded by Ser Daven.
After them followed herds of sheep, goats, and gaunt cattle. Petyr Frey's prison cart was among them. Patrek Mallister and Marq Piper took the rear guard. There were no enemies for hundreds of miles, yet Brynden remained alert at every step.
Blackfish is even more cautious than I am, Tyrion thought.
Small groups of merchants and camp followers joined them along the way. Tyrion didn't turn them away. This would be a long siege—how long would it take? Hopefully less than half a year.
As if fate itself had guided them, the column unknowingly passed into the Whispering Wood, where the Young Wolf had won his first great victory.
They followed the narrow stream running along a stone-lined riverbed where Jaime Lannister's host had once been shattered. Back then the air had been warm, the trees still green, the waters low. Now fallen leaves clogged the current, boulders knotted with exposed roots crowded the banks. Trees that had given Robb's men cover now stood stripped of their green, clad in gold mottled with brown, some turned a dark red that called to mind rust and clotted blood. Only the spruces and soldier pines kept their color, rising straight and tall like black spears.
Rain-washed helmets, broken spears, horse bones. Stone cairns marked the burial sites, though scavengers hadn't spared the dead. Among the overturned rocks lay flashes of bright cloth and glints of metal. A face stared up at her in silence, the skull's outline dimly visible beneath decayed brown flesh.
"My brother was taken alive here by Robb."
"Can't deny it—he had talent," Blackfish said. He drifted into thought. "My brother once meant to marry Lysa to Jaime Lannister."
"That half-mad crone?" Tyrion frowned. In terms of madness, she was the only woman who could match Cersei.
"She was a lovely girl, once," Blackfish said. "Not as beautiful as Cat, but fuller. You know, I used to look down on Hoster and rejected the match he offered me. And how things turned out later… well, much of it came from how he handled his daughters' marriages."
"How so?"
"He called me the black sheep of House Tully. Ha. I told him our sigil was a trout leaping from the river—so I ought to be the Blackfish, not the black sheep. From that day I took it for my own." He tapped the black fish on his chest. "At first, he wanted Cat to wed Brandon Stark. Handsome, bold, full of fire—a fine match. Until…"
"Until he died at the hands of the Mad King."
"Then Hoster married Cat off to Eddard Stark."
"Eddard Stark was a good man."
"Yes, but we only know that now," Blackfish said. "How could my brother have known? To him, it was just passing Cat from one Stark to another. Gods bless her—Lord Aed was a good man."
A good man, and nothing more, Tyrion thought.
"But Lys was another matter," Blackfish said. "Lord Jon Arryn was a good man too, but…"
"He was too old."
"Far too old," Blackfish said. "Granted, in his youth he'd been tall and handsome, blue-eyed, blond, with a hooked nose. But he was older than Hoster, and by the time he wed Lysa he'd already lost half his teeth. Lysa miscarried five times—twice at the Eyrie, three times in King's Landing—and had two stillbirths. I'd rather not discuss my niece's bedchamber troubles, but clearly things were far from happy."
"If my brother…"
"Your brother was fixated on me. I'd made my name in the War of the Ninepenny Kings, and whenever he visited, he peppered me with questions." Blackfish shook his head. "If Jaime Lannister had married Lysa, would things have been different?"
But my brother only ever cared about my sister.
"And your father?" Blackfish asked. "Lord Tywin Lannister, who held all power in his hands—how did he treat his children?"
"Worse than dogs."
"He never arranged a match for you?"
"Ah, I was a frivolous youth. Still, after my brother donned the white cloak, he treated me like a treasured jewel," Tyrion said. "When I was small, he once proposed a match to Prince Doran for Arianne Martell, but the prince refused. And who could blame him? I couldn't even wield a sword, and I'd never been knighted."
Blackfish let out a great laugh. "You and I are both misfits. Only difference is—you're getting married."
"I'll treat Sansa well. She's a beautiful, sweet, innocent girl."
"No one stays innocent forever." Blackfish's blue eyes looked clearer than usual. "She's clever—far more complicated than you think. As the saying goes, extremes give rise to their opposites. It's no wonder two simple folk like Cat and Eddard had such a sharp daughter."
He sighed long and deep. "My poor nieces."
"Tyrion Lannister." Blackfish met his eyes again. "This is why I never married. Now let me give you this counsel."
"Since you've chosen to wed, faithful or not, those little seeds—some worthless, some worth a fortune. Don't treat them like objects. Otherwise, what sort of fruit they'll bear… who can know?"