Winterfell lies in ruins, but the war is over and the Starks will rebuild. 7/3


Winterfell had burnt.

The great walls still stood, unharmed, if blackened by fire, but once inside the damage was obvious. Delicate glass was shattered across what had once been the glass garden, and the fire had burned so hot that one side of the First Keep had fallen, revealing the burnt interior. Karstark and Bolton and Manderly men were rebuilding the Great Hall, but it was still clear that the roof had collapsed when the great beams burned. It seemed the guest house, guards tower, and armory had been more fortunate, but beams of wood were being installed even now. Storehouses could be rebuilt, but it would be difficult to find glass for the garden.

Bell Tower's bridge was now weak ropes strung across to the rookery, construction had clearly begun, but been halted. What once had been fine stables were now pitiful shelters inside a fence, to give the horses some small measure of relief from the weather. She came upon the sept last of all. It had obviously been burnt, but reconstructed. Catelyn drew up her horse to see the damage that had been repaired, irrationally angry that the North had left their great godswood untouched, but ruined the tiny sept.

As she looked, the door opened, and a young woman exited the sept. She could have been any girl, with her head of chestnut curls and doe-brown eyes, but when Catelyn looked closer, the Stark crest on her cloak was clearly visible. Frail hands held her cream skirts off the muddy ground as she stepped out of the sept, and she did not look up to see the horses until Cat called her, "Jeyne."

"Oh! Lady Catelyn!" As Cat dismounted, Jeyne hurried forward to meet her, "I am so very pleased to see you."

"Where is Robb?" Men worked to rebuild the keep, but it was Jeyne Westerling who came to see her and not her own son. Perhaps Robb was out hunting, or seeing to the smallfolk. Behind her, Arya dismounted her mare, the fringe of her skirts covered with mud the moment her feet touched the ground. Unlike the Westerlands girl, she paid no attention to her dress.

They would need to restart the brewing stations, and contact White Harbor for glass and food and supplies. Most of the household would need new clothes after the devastation, including new dresses for Arya. Perhaps a few fosterlings could be arranged from the higher houses, to bring some life to Winterfell, a girl too, if one could be found, to have lessons with Arya. Jeyne trotted behind her as Cat stormed toward the keep, "he is with Ygritte,"

That brought Catelyn up short, "who is Ygritte?"

"In Robb's letters, the Wildling girl?"

"She is still here?"

Jeyne was baffled, "yes, she's carrying Robb's nephew."

"Nephew? How?" Arya interrupted, but Cat ignored her. The less she knew of this the easier it would be when the child was sent away.

"I told him to send her away. We cannot have a wildling in Winterfell," much less one carrying Jon Snow's child. A bastard's bastard, to threaten Robb's trueborn children. She had hoped that she had seen the last of him when he was sent to the Wall, "I will deal with her. Where is she?"

"With Maester Medrick, her babe is coming," Robb had been a fool to let her stay this long. Now the damage was done, and it would be cruel to throw her and the babe into the snow. Cat said nothing more as she climbed the stairs in the Keep; Arya's insistent chatter and Jeyne's patient answers filled the silence in her place.

Robb stood outside the rooms that had been Sansa's, voices coming from within. He looked as scared as if this were his own babe, and Jeyne within the room, but when he saw her his eyes lit up, "mother!"

Her son hugged her, and for a moment Cat missed Ned all over again. When he pulled back, he looked behind her, to where Arya was dressed in her blue-grey dress, skirts muddy and smelling of horse. She threw herself at him, and the siblings embraced tightly. She waited until they parted to speak.

"Much of Winterfell has fallen, it was one thing to read it in your letters, another to see the damage done."

"It can be rebuilt," Robb promised, "I have men working even now."

It was not the massive repairs that concerned Cat. Those could be finished before the worst of winter, "you have done well. But what is this? I told you to send the wildling away, and instead you give her your sister's rooms?"

"Sansa now has rooms in Casterly Rock," her heart hurt everytime she thought of that. Her sweet Sansa was now a Lannister wife. At least the Kingslayer was preferable to the Imp, although they had the same concern for honor. Sansa would not share Lady Joanna's fate, "and Ygritte is not to stay long. Once she recovers from the birth she means to go North."

"Then why did she come?"

"Her babe will stay here."

"I forbid it. You must think of your own children! Bastards are untrustworthy, and the bastard of a bastard? He may try to steal your father's seat."

"Ygritte's son is not a bastard," Jeyne had said nothing through this conversation, but when Cat turned to her the younger woman did not look away. "She and Jon Snow married, as is tradition."

"Jon has a wife?" Arya asked.

"He has broken his vows," if this did not prove to Robb that a bastard could not be trusted, nothing would.

"And that is the fault of his babe?" Jeyne was a girl of the Westerlands. She should understand the dangers of Ned's bastard's child so close to her own. Had they not had enough strife? Rumors still circled of how the Bolton bastard had murdered his trueborn brother, and the War of the Ninepenny Kings had been no rumor.

"Jon's babe will stay here," Robb interrupted before an argument could begin. "I gave my word. A daughter will be married to one of our bannermen, and a son will serve House Stark as a knight."

"You cannot have promised that. I am the Warden of the North," she had not been thrilled with the title, but she would use it to protect her family if she must.

"And I am Lord Stark. If you order me to call my banners and march, I will, but you have no authority to decide who I keep in my castle. Father could not have made Roose Bolton cast out his bastard, and you cannot force me to set Jon's babe out of Winterfell."

Robb was only a boy. He did not know what he was doing, what the people would think. Half would say that the boy was his bastard, the other half would think Robb a fool. All would be angry that he was mothered by a wildling. She needed to explain this, to help Robb understand, but her son's jaw was set in a way that reminded her of many years ago, when Ned had told her that Jon Snow would stay in Winterfell.

"You have only just returned, mother. Let us talk of more pleasant things, please. How was Uncle Edmure's wedding?"

"The wedding went well, although the betrothal did not. Lords Jonos and Tytos came to blows, the great fools," the Blackfish had stepped between them before swords could be drawn, but that had ended all discussion of a Blackwood or Bracken marriage to Edmure, "no harm was done, but Edmure made each of them send the other a child. Hoster Blackwood now serves as Lord Jonos' squire and Jayne Bracken as Lady Blackwood's handmaiden. I think Brynden means to make marriages between them."

"It should keep them from warring, at least. What did you think of the wedding?"

"Beautiful," it had been what Cat had expected her own wedding to be, if it had not come in time of war. "It was held at Riverrun, and Emphyria made a lovely bride. She was set up as Lady of Riverrun when I left, had already secured the love and loyalty of the smallfolk."

Which was better than Robb's own bride. By all accounts, she seemed frightened of the cold and snow and refused to leave the castle. After recovering from losing the babe she carried, Robb said Jeyne had made an effort to be outside more, and had even visited the godswood. This was likely her mother's doing, as the girl herself seemed too timid to want to leave her rooms and handmaidens.

"If Lord Tywin had not taken it upon himself to arrange a betrothal for Edmure's heir, I might have offered one of my own daughters," Robb mused, "you seemed very fond of the Riverlands, mother."

"I was born there, as were you," Catelyn could not be angry with her son for long, not after having missed him these many months. "Robb, you once meant to legitimize Jon Snow, and I advised you against it-"

"And now I am not a king and cannot legitimize anyone. But I am still the Lord of Winterfell, and Jon's babe will be raised in Winterfell."

Catelyn would go to the sept later, but now she prayed to the Mother to be merciful, to give the wildling a daughter and not a son, "think of your wife. You would shame her?"

"Jeyne, are you shamed by my brother's son?" Delicate like a doe, dressed in the silks of the south, Jeyne looked every bit the southron lady. Westerlings were of the Westerlands, and she should be, but Jeyne was a gentle woman, "I will raise Ygritte's babe with my own. If they are as siblings, they will not betray each other for a holding."

As Robb had betrayed the Freys, but Catelyn had the sense not to say that. Instead, she asked, "and what does your mother think of it?"

"She would have turned Ygritte away from Winterfell the moment she came to the gates, but I am not my mother. I trust Robb, and Ygritte has been a friend to me."

She would not win this battle, Cat could see that now. It was tempting to press on, but before she could decide, Arya spoke, "Jon has a wife? He swore to the Night's Watch!"

"The way Ygritte tells it, he had no choice," Jeyne said, "but she says they were married and that is enough for her son to not be named a bastard."

"If Robb says the child is not to be a bastard," it was no proof of anything, but Robb ruled the North and he could do as he pleased. If he said a child of uncertain birth was not a bastard, then he was not a bastard. The Northerners were strange, the child of Ned Stark's bastard would be accepted as trueborn and welcomed among the Starks. In the south it would not be so.

"Will I get a new swordsmanship teacher?"

"No. You must learn to be a proper lady." Ned had let Arya run wild when she was a girl, but she was older now. Without Sansa to marry and secure alliances, Arya must take her place. Catelyn could send for a septa, but as Jeyne now served as the Lady of Winterfell, perhaps she would teach Arya herself, "look at you, your skirts are muddy and your hair is a mess."

"If father had not let Syrio teach me, I would have died in the Riverlands," Arya argued. She had been tame enough at Riverrun, dressing in the style of the ladies of the Riverlands and offering little complaint. Once they had started North, she had grown more irritable, asking to wear men's clothing and often racing the squires in the evenings. Catelyn had tried to forget her daughter's adventures once she had assured herself that Arya was still a maiden and unharmed. "I would have died many times over. I almost did anyway."

"If you attend your lessons in the mornings," Robb began, "you may train with my own squire in the evenings, but only if you do well in both. Is that fair?"

Arya smiled at that, one of the few true smiles Cat had seen from her in a long time, "can I go and look at the castle?"

"Yes, but stay away from the men who are working," Robb allowed, "some of the structures are still unstable."

Arya ran back down the hall, but Robb smiled apologetically at Catelyn, "she is right, you know. It was only what little skill she had and luck that kept her alive."

"In wartime. That will never happen again within her lifetime," Robb looked to Jeyne, who turned aside to Sansa's rooms. Catelyn remembered the Mormont women, in their armor and leather, and wondered if Arya would be the same. The image of her little girl riding to war was not one she wanted.

"I will see if I can help Ygritte." Once the door was closed behind her, Robb lowered his voice.

"There were some things I could not tell you by raven, mother," Catelyn resisted the urge to cry, but she could feel the tears forming. Her family was in ruins, her sons dead, her daughter sold to the Lannisters, and still she could not rest. She wanted to go back to being the lady wife of a great lord, of caring for her castle and daughters. Winter had been her greatest worry, what kept her to late hours, and she might cry from relief if that was true again.

"What have you done? We swore to King Joffrey, we gave our word."

"I will never march south again, I promise you, but Joffrey murdered our father. Murdered him because he was a bastard and father knew, if Stannis is to be believed. We cannot let him get away with this, mother," she had spent her weeks in Riverrun being brave, thought of returning to her home and rebuilding, of the past fading. Robb did not seem to realize the cost of this war, "the North Remembers."

"Do they remember signing a pact?"

"Many of the houses are still angry. They murdered father, stole Sansa; many castles and keeps are in ruins. The Boltons are upset about the Freys, Roose was to marry one of Lord Walder's daughters."

"The damage was caused by the Ironborn. Not the Lannisters. Robb, they have Sansa. They did not steal her, you married her to them to end the war. They will kill your sister. Tywin will kill Sansa. Do you want your sister to die?" Her sweet, brave, loyal daughter. Sansa had submitted to the marriage and done her best to bear the Kingslayer a son. She had not sent one word of complaint in her letters, but between the cruelty of the Baratheon king and her own brother's foolishness she was still in danger.

"They will not kill Sansa, because the North will not march on them. I will remain in Winterfell, as will all my family."

"Robb, this is not the time to play with your oath. If you wanted to continue to fight, you should never have signed their pact. Stannis killed Renly, we killed Stannis, there is no one left to ally with." Robb said nothing. The dread that Catelyn had felt at the beginning of this discussion was worse now, a chill creeping up her spine as she realized the implication of his silence. "You swore, Robb. Your father would not have gone back on his word."

"Father swore loyalty to King Aerys, mother, and then he seated Robert Baratheon on the throne."

"Because the king murdered his father and brother!" Again Robb said nothing, and Catelyn felt helpless. The title of Warden of the North meant nothing if no one would listen to her, and what Northerner would follow a Southron lady in peacetime when they had a Lord Stark to lead them to vengeance?"Does your sister's life mean so little to you?"

"The Lannisters will not kill Sansa, I swear it."

"You also swore-"

"Lord Stark?" Both turned to the midwife, the tension in the corridor broken as the door opened. Robb straightened quickly, looking every bit a lord, "the babe is here. Lady Jeyne asks for you."

Robb's smile was that of a boy, not a lord. She looked, but she could not see Ned in it. There was none of Ned's look in Robb's blue eyes or auburn hair, and none of his honor in his son's face. Not for the first time she cursed Jon Snow's Stark looks, missing in all of her sons, "come mother, and see my nephew."

Catelyn wanted to go to the sept and pray.