EDMURE
Edmure Tully had never hated a place in his life as much as he hated Casterly Rock. To look at it, one would not have imagined that to be the case. He had his own quarters, a comfortable and expansive suite with a solar, bedchamber, and private courtyard, and in the still of the mornings he could hear the waves of the Sunset Sea beating against the cliffs a hundred feet below. Just to the south lay the bustling harbor of Lannisport, a lovely walled city with cobbled streets, stone towers, and countless merchants selling fine goldwork, and if he was so inclined, he could call a guardsman and enjoy a ride through it. But he never did. I will give them no groat of my money, even if it is already theirs. He had been provisioned an allowance of fifty silver stags a month for his personal expenses, and that was more than enough. Anything else he needed, a servant would bring at once. He slept in a featherbed with a heavy counterpane and curtains to keep out the chill, and he ate three square meals a day. And he hated it. He hated all of it.
I almost wish I was back on my gallows. As torturous as it had been to pass every day on the scaffold with the noose chafing welts on his neck, knowing that Ser Ryman was too stupid or too gutless to actually hang him while Riverrun held out, at least he had known exactly where he stood. Literally. And now I have become, again literally, a fish out of water.
He hated the arrogant looks, mingled with well-bred pity and dislike, and the way the gossipers would always pretend not to have seen him. The hypocrisy of their condescension grated on him still more – he did not think the Lannisters had any shred of moral superiority to enjoy, not with the way their fortunes were taking similar disastrous downward arcs. Casterly Rock was a house without a master; Lord Tywin's putrid corpse had been interred in the Hall of Heroes after arriving from King's Landing, which Edmure considered a rather grandiose resting place for a man who'd been murdered on his privy by a dwarf. Ser Kevan was dead as well, Queen Cersei under house arrest in the Red Keep, and Ser Jaime not heard from in weeks. As for the Imp, nobody ever spoke his name.
I suppose eventually I'll get used to it. After all, it's only for life. Sometimes Edmure wondered what sort of existence he could ever have, if he would remember what he was and who he was. Would his blood still run mud-red and cerulean blue, or would he turn into every other sort of toady who spent his life on a silken leash, praising his masters for their goodness and their strength? No man can truly become a slave but that he chooses so. The only, only reason Edmure had been far happier than he should have been as he left for Casterly Rock was because he knew that his uncle and Jeyne Westerling were safe away. He'd watched them scrupulously garrison her little sister Elenya with guards, intent that the Young Wolf's queen not elude their clutches, and wanted to laugh in their faces. The only worthwhile thing I've ever done, but gods, it was a good one.
Edmure had always been the baby. Arriving nine years after Catelyn and seven years after Lysa, when Lord Hoster had begun to despair of having a male heir, his birth had been greeted with unanimous rejoicing. When his mother died not two years later, and the second son with her, he became even more precious. While his sisters dutifully prepared to mind their manners and take other men's names, he was allowed leave to behave nearly as he wished. When he did take the game too far, it was usually Utherydes Wayn or Desmond Grell who rebuked him, not the doting Lord Hoster. But he was a charming and good-hearted lad, if occasionally hot-headed, and malice was not part of his nature, so forgiveness always followed swiftly. The only man with whom he had ended up on permanent bad terms was that bloody singer. Floppy fish, my arse. It still scorched Edmure to think about. How in seven hells had Ser Jaime tricked up the very man to serenade him with The Rains of Castamere, to make sure he knew very well what would happen if he did not order Riverrun to surrender? I'll strangle you one day, Kingslayer. I have two good hands, and you only have one.
Yet as Edmure had grown older, he became increasingly aware of – and increasingly dissatisfied with – how little his life actually amounted to. His sisters had been married to Ned Stark and Jon Arryn and become great ladies in their own rights, but he was still loitering about Riverrun, drinking and wenching and watching his father fall into the grip of an illness that ultimately robbed him of memory and dignity as well as life. When the war began and Jaime Lannister was imprisoned in their dungeons, Edmure had hoped that this would give him the opportunity to prove himself; his first attempt to meet the Kingslayer sword to sword had ended up with Robb having to rescue him. But then his own sister Catelyn had released Lannister, taking the word of a man with shit for honor, and the men Edmure sent to recapture him had come slinking back in ignominious failure.
Then he thought he had his shining moment of triumph, beyond all doubt, when he defended the Stone Mill crossing against Gregor Clegane, annihilating any man in Lannister colors who managed to reach the western bank of the Red Fork. Ser Addam Marbrand was repudiated thrice, Lord Lefford drowned, Strongboar Crakehall taken captive – the victory had looked to be complete. Only for Edmure to be told later that he had in fact inadvertently hamstrung the entire campaign. The Lannisters were supposed to cross, Ser Brynden and Robb informed him angrily, so they would be trapped between the two armies, Stark and Tully. He would have helped them just as much if he'd attacked Robb's forces himself.
And it was to make amends that I agreed to marry Roslin, and because of that, no wedding in Westeros will ever be looked at the same way again. It still baffled Edmure that he and his wife had become fond of each other, considering the unfathomable way in which they had come together. During the consummation, he'd been as gentle with her as he possibly could, and didn't understand why she kept crying. Or why she began to cry harder when they were finished, and begged him to forgive her. He was just telling her that she had nothing to be sorry for, when the bedchamber door burst open and half a dozen armored Freys marched in, grinning.
Edmure had bolted upright angrily at the intrusion, telling them that he had a right to expect privacy in his own marriage bed, even under the spectacularly peevish Lord Walder's roof. But they only grinned wider. And then – even now, his stomach turned over at the memory – as Roslin sobbed and screamed and almost fainted, they reached behind them and produced the severed head of his nephew. They dropped it on the bed, and it rolled, blood leaking from the stump of its neck, as Edmure stared into Robb's stunned, empty blue eyes with a horror that no nightmare could ever even hope to touch.
Everything after that was a blur.
His subsequent imprisonment and the siege of Riverrun felt almost trivial by comparison. He had nothing to nourish him but his hatred, and that kept him going once the numbness wore off. When the Freys mockingly informed him that Roslin was pregnant, and congratulated him on his prowess at doing the deed while the Stark cause went down in flames around him, he had thrown himself at Black Walder and made a deadly serious attempt to tear out his throat with his bare hands. But the only thing he had gotten out of it was an almighty clout that knocked him senseless for the better part of an hour. The next day was his first on the gallows.
And now, Casterly Rock. The only way Edmure could even get to sleep at night was by fantasizing about murdering his captors, inch by inch. Yet while the anger still had him in its teeth and claws, the grief followed as well, and the love. He had put the cloak of his protection around Roslin's shoulders, and even considering the mockery her father had made of the protection of guest right, he had to keep his word. She carried his child. If it was a boy, his life would hold less value, but he couldn't see how it held so much to begin with. When it is born, boy or girl, it and Roslin will come to live with me here. Or so Ser Jaime had promised, but Edmure would grow wings from his arse before he put any trust in a Lannister's oath. Or a Frey's, or a Bolton's. He hated them all, so much that it sometimes made him physically sick.
Today, he had woken before the dawn again, and went to walk in the courtyard, watching the sun climb up from behind the great bulwark of the Rock. It had frosted again, and hard; the gardens and the twining vines had gone dry and dead, and, everything was varnished in a delicate sheen. Edmure's breath made misty billows in the air, and he sat to catch his breath on the lip of the empty stone fountain. He wondered where his uncle and Jeyne were now. If the gods were good – which they never were – then the two of them were safe with Howland Reed, and Jeyne knew conclusively that she was carrying a little wolf pup. But even if she is, the succession to the north is wide open. So we can have another war to sort that out. Robert Baratheon's death had demonstrated to even the densest citizen of the Seven Kingdoms of the perils of expiring without an adult, unquestionably legitimate male heir.
But Edmure did not want to think about politics any more. Roslin, Jeyne, and the Blackfish were in fact the only things keeping him from getting up and hurling himself off the cliff right now. If I wasn't such a coward, I would have done it already. As his title, Lord of Riverrun, no longer meant anything whatsoever, it wasn't as if he had lands or vassals he needed to worry about abandoning. Aye, and Roslin will likely have a boy, because that's the sort of jest the gods would find terribly amusing. And then the Lannisters will have no use for me, and will think of some appropriately terrible way to get rid of me anyway. It's best that I end it on my terms.
Now that the idea had been planted in his head, it was quickly acquiring a ghoulish romance. He got up and crossed the courtyard, boosting himself onto the merlon and gazing down at the rock-strewn shore far below. Vertigo and cold air pulled seductively at him. The impact would almost surely break his neck, and the tide would wash his body out to sea – he would lie with schools of fish as his last attendants and mer-children gaming with his bones, as a Tully should. End this. End it now.
Edmure inched forward on the merlon. His hand slipped out over open air, and he instinctively snatched it back, a surge of adrenaline burning through him. He stared at the drop, suddenly aware that the prospect was considerably more nerve-wracking than it had been a moment ago. But no, he had to do it. Jeyne and the Blackfish were far beyond anything else he could do for them, and as for Roslin. . . she would grieve, undoubtedly, and it was certainly unkind to make her entire marriage a farce from beginning to end. But she deserved a better life than the one she'd have as a gentle prisoner here with him, the reminder of their demons staring them in the face every day.
Edmure sat down and swung both legs over the side. Now all he needed to do was push off, and that was it. It would be over quickly. Unwillingly, he thought of his sister Lysa, who had been murdered by some singer chucking her out the Moon Door. Was it a long way to fall? Were you afraid? What did you think, or could you even, as the great white mountain rushed up to catch you?
Edmure closed his eyes and began to pray the Invocation of the Seven, more commonly done by a septon at an individual's deathbed. "Father, judge me justly. Mother, grant me mercy. Warrior, defend my soul. Maiden, give me the innocence I have lost. Smith, carry me to the halls of summer. Crone, cut the thread of my fate and grant me the wisdom of the dead. Stranger – "
"My lord? Lord Edmure?"
Startled, Edmure's eyes flashed open before he could utter the last stanza of the prayer – Stranger, wrap me in your dark wings, and may your sleep come soft and gently. He turned just in time to see an alarmed-looking maidservant, hovering at the periphery of the courtyard. Annoyed at being interrupted at such a pivotal moment, he snapped, "Aye?"
"I. . . you'll come down from there, won't you?" The girl looked at him nervously. "There's. . . there's a visitor. Ser Addam Marbrand, my lord."
If Edmure had to suffer the intrusions of any Lannister lapdog, he was more willing for it to be Ser Addam than another; he had always found the tall copper-haired knight to be chivalrous, courteous, and conscientious, moderate in temper and action. Then again, among the Lannisters, that is akin to saying that one whore has more morality than another. Grudgingly, he slid down from the merlon and followed her across the courtyard. I can always kill myself later.
Sure enough, Ser Addam was waiting when the maidservant showed him into his rooms. After she had left, he inclined his head. "Lord Edmure. I apologize for disturbing you at this early hour."
"No matter," Edmure said. "I was awake." I should be shouting at him. Something. Ser Addam was not responsible for the indignities of his imprisonment, but he was conveniently at hand – and also wearing a longsword. His cloak was damp with snow, and more flakes were melting in his long hair. It was that which first wakened Edmure's suspicion. A man does not leave a warm bed and journey all the way here without bloody good reason. After the search parties under Ser Addam's command had failed to find the Blackfish, he had returned to his family's seat of Ashemark, rather than his post as Lord Commander of the City Watch in King's Landing (apparently he had loathed it heartily, the City Watch being the den of vipers and lickspittles that it was). And Ashemark to Casterly Rock was not a ride that could be made in a day; Ser Addam was furtherly unlikely to have ventured here on a lark. Something is wrong. Very wrong.
"Sit, if you would," Ser Addam said. "Have you broken your fast?"
"I'm not hungry." Edmure had a feeling he might not want to have anything to do with food, once this confrontation had run its course.
"Very well." Ser Addam folded himself into the window seat, but Edmure obstinately remained standing. There passed a hideously uncomfortable several moments, until Ser Addam must have finally seen that Edmure wasn't about to give him any help. "My lord," he said. "I paid a call at the Crag this last fortnight."
"Did you?"
"I did. As you know, it is not far from Ashemark, and I was acquainted with the Westerlings in my youth. I was saddened to hear of Ser Raynald's demise at the Red Wedding, and of Lady Jeyne's grief for her husband. So I thought it only mannerly to visit them, to see how they were settling back in after all the disruptions. Only. . ."
"Aye?" Edmure was beginning to gain a hideous sense of where this might be going.
"Only to find," Ser Addam said evasively, "that Lady Jeyne's grief might not have been as genuine as I thought. Oh, I've no reason to doubt that she mourns the Young Wolf. She has a sweet heart. But when Jaime met the girl in Riverrun and ordered her sent her back to her father at the Crag, I was already afield, leading the search for your uncle. It was not until I saw her just recently that I had reason to suspect anything amiss."
"Oh?" Edmure attempted to look surprised.
"Aye." Ser Addam hesitated. "My lord, I must be frank. The girl I met at the Crag was not Jeyne Westerling. It was her little sister. The girls have always looked alike, it is true, but my questions about Elenya were avoided, deflected, or ignored. And since you were allowed back into Riverrun prior to ordering it to surrender – an interlude which you used to secretly liberate your uncle – I can only think that you know where the real Jeyne is too."
Edmure said nothing.
"My lord," Ser Addam repeated, less patiently. "You know what having the Young Wolf's widow safely in custody means for the future of the war, and the fight for the north. You know what the terms – "
"The Lannister terms."
Ser Addam exhaled sharply through his nose. "Edmure," he said instead. "My lord of Tully. I cannot blame you for your hatred. I would feel the same, in your position. But you were commanded to surrender the girl, and you did not. By any man's metric, that is not only a crime, but a serious one."
"Prove it," Edmure said flippantly.
"I have all the proof I need at the Crag," Marbrand snapped, temper sparking at last. "If I ask Lord Gawen to produce both girls on the instant, give him a writ signed by King Tommen demanding it – and tell him that the pardons issued to the Westerling family by the Iron Throne may be at stake – he will, I assure you, be unable to do it. Jeyne got away with your uncle, my lord, and don't try to tell me any differently. Where did they go?"
"I don't know," said Edmure. "Go ahead and kill me."
Ser Addam looked at him lividly. "Much as the idea has its attractions, I fear I must decline. I am no Frey."
Edmure shrugged. He almost wanted to laugh. What could Marbrand threaten him with? "Have you shared your concerns with – I'm afraid I don't know quite who it would be, these days?"
"I have sent a letter to King's Landing, informing the small council of my suspicions," Marbrand admitted. "As yet, I have received no reply. Likely they have larger issues at hand just the moment. I do not know if you heard, but Storm's End fell last week."
Edmure hadn't heard, in fact. It was impossible to think of Storm's End being taken; hence its very name. "What?" he blurted out, too surprised to dissemble. "To who?" Last he'd heard, Mace Tyrell had abandoned the effort to reclaim it for Tommen after his daughter Margaery was arrested by the Faith, and the fortress continued to hold stoutly out for Stannis.
Ser Addam paused again. "To the pretender calling himself Aegon Targaryen. It was a slaughter nearly on the order of Dragonstone. There is no denying the pretender's courage, but he spent the Golden Company's blood as if it was mud, not gold. Lord Stannis remains unaccounted for in the north, and winter is setting in there with teeth and claws, so it might be that we shall never hear him from again."
"Not bloody likely." Even if he had to crawl on hands and knees, Stannis Baratheon would make it back.
"Be that as it may," Ser Addam said crisply. "The appearance of a Targaryen pretender on one hand, and the Young Wolf's widow on the other, would once and for all break the Seven Kingdoms apart. The south burns, the north freezes. And my lord, there are. . . tales."
"What tales?"
"The sort that I wish could be dismissed as campfire ghost stories." Ser Addam looked at him straight. "And lest you think I exaggerate, Jaime knew how important Jeyne Westerling was. He was willing to have her killed sooner than risk her escaping."
"Coming from the Kingslayer, that surprises me exactly not at all."
"Jaime has been my friend since childhood," Marbrand said quietly, "and contrary to all appearances, he has never been a monster. He's gone missing as well too, you know. He vanished from the village of Pennytree in the riverlands, and hasn't been heard from since. So if it's revenge you want to salve your heart, there's that."
Edmure shrugged again. "So," he said. "Let me ascertain whether I am following you. You are asking me to do a kindness, to help recapture my nephew's wife and my own queen, in order to hold the poor broken realm together?"
"If you insist on putting it like that," said Ser Addam, "yes."
Edmure laughed. He couldn't hold it back this time. "Bugger you," he said. "Bugger you. How do you propose to make me obey? What can you possibly take from me that you haven't taken? Kill my wife, would that be it? Launch my son from a catapult? Your precious Jaime threatened that already. You sent my household into exile – Ser Desmond Grell, my master-at-arms, he was old when I was born and you bloody Lannisters sent him to the bloody Wall. Lord Tywin plotted to make my wedding infamous from coast to coast, to murder my nephew, my sister, and all their companions. And yet you still seem to think that I somehow owe the poxiest beggar among you a favor. If that's the case, my lord. Kill me. You'll do everyone a favor."
Ser Addam shook his head. "I will not," he said again. "It may interest you to know that I mean no harm to Jeyne. But if you do not come with me, I will be forced to recruit help from elsewhere. Men who will have no such concern for the girl's well-being, or your uncle's." He took a step. "Listen to me. You are still a young man, with much life before you, and I doubt you want to spend it here. If you serve us well in this matter, Jeyne and the very Seven Kingdoms may be saved, and you will no longer be a prisoner."
He has me. Even before Edmure said a word, he knew that that was the case. Ser Addam had offered the one thing he wanted, rather than threatening to take away what he no longer had. I could be free again one day, I could go back to Riverrun, I could raise my sons and daughters and live with my wife in the walls of my own castle. True, it required making the colossal assumption that Ser Addam would keep his word, but he'd recognized himself that Marbrand was made of finer stuff than the others.
He tried to sound neutral, offhand. I must not agree too quickly. I must not show him how much I want this. He had been on the brink of throwing himself from the walls not an hour previously; he was stunned by the reversal of fortune. "I still don't know that I would be of help. I don't know where they went."
"Oh," said Ser Addam. "I think you do."