"Bed them!"
A raucous roar, laughter and crude words echoing in the great hall of her father's castle, and Robert Baratheon was not yet king, but still the guests moved as one as he shouted his bawdy order. "To bed! To bed with them!"
Catelyn Tully had witnessed bedding ceremonies before, many times. She had even partaken in the merriment of it and helped divest one or two men at their own weddings, and she had blushed prettily, thinking of the day Brandon Stark would be standing there instead, amidst giggling women eager to rip off his fine clothes.
And yet Catelyn Stark, a married woman, stood now where a young Catelyn Tully once stood, and her heart was filled with dread as the men all seemed to move closer to where she was, rooted to the ground.
There were many more men than there were women, as she had been able to note throughout the wedding feast. These men were here to follow their liege lord into battle, not to celebrate weddings, that much she knew, and it made no difference that there would not have been a battle - at least not one that the rebel king and her lord husband might have won - without the swords that came with her and Lysa.
She thought of Lysa as she tried to ignore the crude remarks made by drunken men upon her own features, and she felt a pang of jealousy despite everything, for her sweet sister might have had the worst part of the bargain - forced to marry a man as old as her own father - but at least she had been spared the bedding, out of respect to her husband's old age.
Catelyn had not been as lucky.
It was a small comfort to note that her own new husband - a Stark, and yet not the Stark she had hoped to marry - was not enjoying the ceremony any more than she. Lord Eddard Stark, grim and solemn-faced, allowed the few women in attendance to disrobe him, and the ladies did so with a modicum of respect, probably stemming from a secret fear of that cold northerner who had never smiled since he had set foot in Riverrun.
In the chaos that followed Robert Baratheon's order to bed them, Catelyn's eyes met those of her husband only once, with a silent, timid plea to call back his men as one would dogs fighting for a bone, but there was no mercy in Eddard's grey eyes, though perhaps she saw a flicker of… something - jealousy, perhaps? - as his men blatantly leered and groped every bit of skin uncovered.
There were bawdy japes yelled across the hall, all around her, and she saw her father had left, young Edmure with him. She was glad; she would not have wanted her little brother to witness such a spectacle of his elder sister. She had been like a mother to Edmure for far too long to allow that. Her uncle was there, though, standing by the doors, resolutely looking away, as if he could not stand to gaze upon the men disrobing her so vulgarly. She wondered if he would have come to her rescue, had she had called for him. She thought he would have, her sweet uncle; he had always been so fond of her and Lysa.
But the bedding was part of the wedding, and the wedding was her duty; there was no room for cowardice where duty was concerned.
"I apologize, my lady. I do not mean to offend." But it was clear that the man closest to her, drunk as he was, did not entirely mean his words either, for a particularly crass joke followed his apology and made her turn up her nose in disdain. Any reply she might have had - though she was not certain she had any at all, too embarrassed to utter a word - died on her lips, however, as the fabric of her beautiful wedding dress ripped with a loud sound, yielding easily to the strong pull of the dark-haired man behind her, taller than her by a head, and broad and muscular as any she had seen. He was handsome, but his attractiveness did not make the lust in his dark eyes any less unseemly, particularly from a man who had spent the better part of the night close to her husband's side, acting as Lord Stark's guard and right-hand man.
"My gown!" The words left Catelyn's mouth in a startled, accusing gasp, and if Jory Cassel had any intention to apologize, it was entirely lost in the way his lips curved in a smirk as he circled her and pulled apart the smooth silk and lace of her bodice, uncovering her bosom, hardly hidden by the nearly transparent shift she wore beneath her wedding gown. His eyes seemed to burn on her skin, and Catelyn allowed herself to act on instinct for once, covering herself by crossing her arms over her chest, her own blue eyes shining bright with embarrassment and shame.
How could she ever look at any of these men again, knowing that they had seen her in such a state? How could these men fight alongside her husband, alongside her own father, after all of this? The bedding ceremony might have been amusing to a young girl, but it was all different now, when her cheeks were burning, as red as her hair, and her heart beat wildly in her chest.
Was her husband afraid as she was, she wondered. Was he trembling inside at the prospect of bedding her in truth, at the knowledge that soon enough they would lie together, just as she was?
He did not seem anxious, that cold lord husband of hers, but then again, Catelyn had found little emotion in Lord Eddard Stark's face, even after she had gazed at him the night long, curious and wary at a time, hoping to acquire a better knowledge of the stranger to whom she had been so easily given.
And yet, there was something there, in the tight clench of his jaw as his cold grey eyes glared at his own man, and Jory Cassel seemed to perceive the stare, cold enough for Catelyn to wish she may never be on the receiving end of it. He stepped away at once, drunkenly staggering on unsteady legs, but the damage to her gown was done by then, and her shift soon suffered the same fate, falling to the ground, torn to pieces by greedy hands.
"Those teats, m' lord… Make a man wish he'd never been weaned," called Lord Dustin, a decent man by all standards, but much too inebriated to be quite proper. The compliment was lost on Catelyn, who only blushed more, as an endearing flush spread from her cheeks down to the very chest Lord Dustin was so openly leering at.
Lord Eddard remained silent at that, shifting his glare from Jory Cassel to William Dustin, but there was no noticeable change in his demeanor other than that, his jaw still clenched tight, eyes as cold and stormy as they were before.
"Lady Catelyn will give you many sons, Lord Stark," Lord Jason Mallister added, clearly mistaking Eddard's silence for some kind of uncertainty, and despite her nakedness, despite how Lord Mallister seemed to believe the lavishness of his gifts allowed him to be bolder than the others, Catelyn was happy to hear the pride in his voice as he reassured Lord Stark of the worth of his liege lord's daughter. And she was glad he was the one to hoist her up on his shoulder to carry her into the bedchamber where her marriage bed awaited; she had known the man all her life, it was somehow easier to be naked in his arms than in the arms of a stranger.
He deposited her on the bed with uncommon gentleness, and Catelyn grabbed the sheets to cover herself at once, her eyes glossy and cheeks still flushed. She feared the redness that tinted her pale skin would never disappear, but she fought the urge to hide her face in the sheets, bawdy jests and vulgar remarks still ringing in her ears even as her husband was shoved into the bedchamber and the doors were closed.
She knew the guests had not truly left, that their eager ears were pressed against the heavy wood of the door and that they would soon be shouting crass words and advice on how her husband was to bed her, but Catelyn's entire attention was focused on the man before her; a man who still looked like a boy in the dim moonlight filtering through the tall windows.
The women had thought to stop at his smallclothes, while the men had had no such care with her, but she watched, transfixed, as he timidly removed the last garment still covering his lean body and walked slowly toward the bed. She was certain she should have said something, a gentle word, perhaps, some kind of invitation, but her heart was beating hard and fast, lodged somewhere in her throat, and she could not croak out a sound as her fingers gripped the sheet tightly, knuckles white and eyes wide with worry and fear.
There was silence for a long moment - the guests outside the door had either stopped yelling and laughing or Catelyn's mind had just managed to ignore the ruckus, for once - and her blue eyes met Eddard's. There was something in those grey orbs, a flicker of emotion that unsettled her, making her stomach lurch somewhat unpleasantly, but his large hands were gentle when he pried her fingers from the sheet, though there was unexpected urgency to his movements.
'He shall ride into battle soon enough,' Catelyn thought, with something akin to worry, her lower lip held between her teeth as she let her lord husband pull back the sheet and hover over her. "You need an heir, my lord," was all she said, her voice quiet but steady, and it was not a question, for she knew it was her duty to give him a son, an heir for Winterfell and the North.
She never imagined, not once, that there might be something more to it. She never thought this man she hardly knew at all might want to bed her out of more than duty alone.
THE END