AN- Just a short, Robb-centric chapter to pass the time. More plot next time.
"Power resides where men believe it to reside. No more and no less."
Bran sawed away at his meat. He hated boar. It was a boar that'd killed the king, or so the Lannisters claimed. "It wasn't a boar that brought down Robert Baratheon," Robb had told him though. "It was the queen's doing."
His brother now gave him a gentle kick under the table. He wouldn't reprimand the boy in front of the bannermen, but the look in his eyes was warning enough. Behave yourself, it said. Bran almost wished he was still too young to sup with the lords. He'd rather have baby Rickon for company than these grown men with their talk of war.
"My lord," Roose Bolton said, leaning forward to address Robb at the head of the long table. In father's place, Bran thought. "There have been rumors that the Kingslayer's taken your Uncle Edmure hostage."
The raven had come two days ago. Robb had decided to wait for all of the bannermen to arrive, so he'd only have to break the news once. Apparently, most of them were already aware. First Uncle Benjen, he thought wearily, now Uncle Edmure. "It is true, my lords. Riverrun has fallen."His words were met with buzzing, angry outbursts. The Greatjon slammed his fist against the table, knocking over his cup. Dark red wine spread over the the blue table cloth.
"The Kingslayer better not get too cozy," Umber said, his voice rising above all the rest. "We'll root him out soon enough."
"I thought we were to march on King's Landing," Roose Bolton said. He was the only man among them who'd not lost his cool. His clear blue eyes, steady as two glaciers, remained fixed on Robb.
"To King's Landing!" Robett Glover cried.
His older brother, Galbart Glover, silenced him with a glance and added, "The Tullys have always been true friends of the north. In my opinion, we should liberate the Riverlands first. We can't hope to lay siege to the capitol without your grandfather's bannermen."
"What of Lord Stark?" Halys Hornwood said. "Is it not our foremost duty to free him?"
Everyone had a different opinion. Robb's eyes darted from one lord to the next, listening to them in silence, committing their words to memory. In truth, he said nothing, because he had not decided for himself what their next move should be.
Bran drowned them all out, wishing he could ask to be excused. He knew what he would do, if the decision was his. The answer seemed simple. I'd save father. I'd bring him home.
Robb sank into the copper tub. At last, he was alone. He couldn't recall the last time he'd had a moment to himself. He filled his palms with water and watched it run through his fingers. The steam of the hot bath washed over his face. He rested his head against the cushion tucked behind his neck, closed his eyes, and tried to forget about the choice he'd have to make, and soon.
But in his head, he still heard the lords calling out their advice. They bickered worse than Sansa and Arya. They were all stubborn and they all thought their plan better than everyone else's. Robb wished he had just half of their self-certainty.
He pulled in a deep breath and sunk further down into the tub. His head slipped under the water, enveloping him in warmth and silence. It was peaceful here. If he never surfaced again, he'd never have to make decision. Soon, though, his lungs burned with the need for air. He waited as long as he could, before coming up, gasping and sputtering.
"Trying to drown yourself?"
Robb's eyelids flew open. The wildling stood across the room, with the open window at her back.
"You can't be in here," he shouted. Water splashed over the lip of the tub when he hurriedly crossed his legs.
"The door wasn't locked," she said with a shrug.
"That doesn't mean you can barge in." Robb shifted, wishing she'd look somewhere else.
"Pardon, my lord. Not many doors where I come from. To get any privacy, you had to hike all the way to the Fangs."
"I don't care how you used to..." He paused, took another deep breath, and repositioned his hands. What use was it, explaining doors to a wildling? "What are the Fangs?" he asked instead.
"The Frostfangs."
Uncle Benjen had told him about the mountains over the Wall, a veil between the Lands of Always Winter and the Haunted Forest. Robb made a note to ask her about them again when he was clothed."Do you mind?"he said, after an agonizing minute of silence.
Nyssa leaned against the windowsill. Her eyes raked over his chest, down the dark line of hair starting below his belly button and leading... "No, I don't mind," she said, looking back up at his face.
"You know what I mean," he said.
"Aye, reckon I do." But she didn't turn around. There was a teasing quirk to her lips. She smiled more these days, though still not often, and usually at his expense. "You've seen every inch of me, my lord. It's only fair I get a look at you."
He glared at her. She smirked back at him. After another minute, he submerged himself once again. Nyssa wondered if he meant to drown himself, after all, but then his dark, curly head broke the surface. He rose, stepped out of the tub, and spun around, nearly slipping in a puddle of bathwater. The wildling laughed. So much for dignity.
When he turned back around, dressed now, she was frowning over the maps spread across the table. "Where do the lions live?" she asked.
Robb joined her. He tapped the miniature sketch of a many turreted castle at the mouth of Blackwater Bay. "King's Landing, the capitol." Then he dragged his index finger west, to the opposite shore of the map. "But their true home is here, at Casterly Rock."
"So that's where you'll go?"
"No. The bulk of the Lannister's forces are here..." he pointed to Riverrun, then Harrenhal"and here." Staring at the map, as he had often these past two days, he forgot about the wildling, but he spoke aloud, thinking. "My father's in King's Landing. If we march that way, Tywin's sure to move his armies east, putting them between us and the capitol. We could take to the sea, but we don't have the fleet for it, or the time to build one."
Nyssa circled behind him. "Riverrun," she said, tracing the letters she couldn't read. "That's where your mother's from, right?"
Robb nodded, hardly paying her any attention.
The little castle was nestled at the place where a thick, blue line forked into two smaller ones. "What're these?" she asked, charting out the blue lines with her hand.
"Are there no maps where you come from, either?" Robb asked.
"No, not like this."
"The blue lines are rivers. That there is the Red Fork."
"Why's it called red?"
"Well, because it is red, from all the mud and silt pouring in from the Westerlands."
Nyssa had never seen a red river before, except for the river of blood in her dreams. She stepped back from the map, intimidated by how much there was to see. The south was bigger than she'd thought it was. All of those strange marks, lines, and letters meant nothing to her. They were a secret language. She envied how easily the boy-lord seemed to understand it.
"Well, where will you go?" she asked.
"I don't know," Robb admitted. "If I march to King's Landing to save my father, then the Lannisters will burn my mother's homeland to the ground. If I march to the Riverlands and free my uncle, then..." He couldn't finish. He did not need to.
"Then the lions will kill your father," Nyssa said. It was no easy choice. "Save your father, or save your uncle, either way you've got to decide soon, before your men lose faith. Don't over think it. You already know which battle you can win."
She left him alone with his maps, but he no longer needed to look at them. She was right, of course. Robb tore his eyes from King's Landing and turned them back to Riverrun.
They would march to Moat Cailin at week's end. And on to Riverrun from there, Robb thought, as he rode through the ranks. The camp sprawled out from Winterfell's walls, all the way across the moors, to the edge of the Wolfswood. All around, men were loading the wagons and making sure their swords were good and sharp, but as he passed, they all stopped what they were doing to look up at him. Some of them called out to him, cheers of encouragement, while others watched solemnly.
He could not blame them for their simmering resentment. Here he was, a boy, asking them to turn their backs on the man they were sworn to protect. They could not know how much Robb doubted his own decision. If we could take King's Landing...But there was little hope of that. He remembered Maester Luwin's council, "Be certain and they will follow you," and buried deep his doubts.
The Head Steward rode at his side. The sound of his quill scratching against parchment, as he counted off the men, drove Robb mad, as did the Head Steward's babbling on about how many sacks of potatoes and turnips, how many barrels of dried meat, they'd need. He looked at the army with beady, calculating eyes, seeing only numbers, not men going to their deaths.
"There's not much we can spare," the Head Steward said. "After all, winter is coming," He smiled to himself at what Robb could only assume had been a poor attempt at a joke.
"You'll spare what needs to be spared," he said.
"Of course, my lord." The Head Steward ducked his head under the young lord's stern gaze. Robb hated when they did that. He hated riding high atop his horse while his men trudged through the mud. "You'll ruin your cloak," the Head Steward cried out, when he swung out of his saddle. His boots sunk in the mud, where they belonged. I don't give a damn about my cloak, he thought. If he wanted his men to follow him, he'd have to do more than act certain. He would have to be one of them.
Without looking back at the steward, he continued on foot, wading through the shallow brown rivers made by wagon ruts in the up-turned earth. He stopped every dozen feet or so, to lend a hand loading the wagons, or to exchange a few words with the men. On and on the army stretched. His army. His men. The least he could do was learn their names and faces. Some of them were even younger than him. He spotted their bright and eager faces shining among the hard-browed veterans, who'd already seen their fair share of bloodshed during the Greyjoy Rebellion.
All day he walked through the camp, losing track of time. Night crept up on him. His stomach growling and his feet aching, he made his way back to the castle. Hungry and tired as he was, though. he couldn't resist climbing the battlements. The effort was well worth it. He looked out at the moors, ablaze with hundreds of bonfires, and felt hopeful for the first time in weeks.