The great hall of Riverrun was, perforce, the largest single room in the castle. At full capacity almost four hundred people could join the Lord of Riverrun at wine and meat. Hoster Tully had hoped that his current crowd of guests would do exactly that, for they had been assembled for a happy occasion, the joint wedding of Hoster's daughter Catelyn to Brandon Stark, eldest son and heir of Lord Rickard of Winterfell, and Lord Rickard's daughter Lyanna to Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End. From all across northern and eastern Westeros the guests had come, fully a third of the peerage of the realm with their retinues, come to witness the socio-political event of the decade; overshadowed in scope by the great tournament at Harrenhal perhaps, but vastly more significant, as three kingdoms were bonded together by marriage and a fourth joined them in fellowship.
But three men had been consumed by madness and so all of the carefully laid plans had been brought crashing down. Instead of hosting a nuptial banquet, Hoster found himself chairing the next best thing to a Great Council.
Whether or not it would become a council of war was the topic currently being discussed.
"Our course is clear!" proclaimed Jon Umber, his beard bristling. "We must raise our banners and fight! Today!"
"You would raise your sword against your king?" Lord Darry shouted back, his eyes popping. "Have you no honor?!"
The Greatjon spat on the floor. "That, for Mad Aerys!" he roared in Darry's face. "And for you as well, if you are too craven to fight by our side against tyranny!"
Lord Corbray took advantage of the hubbub that ensued as Darry was physically restrained from attacking the Northman to interject. "Our northern cousins say truly that we cannot let so gross an insult pass unanswered," he said soothingly. "But neither must we forget our duty to our king. The fault for this affair lies not with him but with his son. Let us send again to King's Landing, beseeching the king's justice . . ." he was drowned out by a chorus of boos, over which thundered the stentorian voice of Robert Baratheon.
"We have sent to King's Landing for justice!" the young stormlord bellowed, pointing to the high table. "And in answer of our plea, he summons my good-father to account for his actions like some common felon! Are we men or slaves, to be treated so?!"
Hoster turned his attention from the outcry among the assembled lords to cast his glance over the other two occupants of the high table. Jon Arryn was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows braced against the table as he surveyed the hall with pensive eyes over his steepled fingers. Rickard Stark was reading and rereading the missive that had come from King's Landing, delivered by raven that very morning, his stern face set like flint.
Many men found the Warden of the North a hard man to read, but Hoster Tully knew him of old; Rickard's angers ran cold instead of hot. The fact that he had not said anything since reading the missive aloud to the assembly betokened ill.
Hoster turned his attention back to the floor of the hall where Lord Mooton was holding forth. "We know we are justified in our wroth, my lords, but many others will not see it so," he said, gesturing grandly at the walls. "What of the lords of the Crownlands, who hold seisin of the king? What of the Martells, whose nephew is second in line for the Throne? What of Lord Lannister, who longs for royal favor once more? What of Mace Tyrell, who knows little of our northern cousins and cares less? What of the armies and fleets these men can muster? If we declare against the king, will not they . . . " He was cut off by a sudden crack that made the whole hall flinch and snap their eyes toward the high table, where Rickard Stark had brought his open palm down on the tables surface.
"Have. Done," the Stark said, his voice as absolute as a dungeon door slamming closed. "I am weary unto death of these arguments. Now I will speak, and you will listen." Mooton showed tremendous poise, Hoster thought, by yielding the floor to Rickard with a graceful bow instead of simply collapsing into his seat. Rickard stood, ominous in his dark leather doublet and black fur-lined cape, the missive still clutched in his hand.
"Two hundred years ago and more," he said somberly, "my ancestor Torrhen knelt before Aegon the Conqueror and surrendered his crown. When he did, he placed his hands between the Conqueror's and swore a mighty oath, an oath that has been remembered in my line ever since. 'To Aegon of House Targaryen, and his heirs after him, I pledge the faith of Winterfell and the North. Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, our king. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you. We swear it by earth and water, by bronze and iron, by ice and fire.' And when Torrhen had sworn, Aegon too swore an oath, binding him and his heirs after him, that he would not forget our oath, nor fail to reward what was given; fealty with love, valor with honor, oath-breaking with vengeance. Any who did harm to us did harm to him, and at their peril. This he swore by the blood of his House and the fire of their dragons, that the first might be spilled and the second extinguished if he failed in his oath." There were nods around the room; every man present was intimately familiar with what an oath of fealty entailed. "Two hundred years and more," Rickard went on, "we have kept our oath. We gave our tax and our counsel in peace and our swords and our lives in war. We have kept faith with the heirs of the Conqueror, even in the deepest winter."
Rickard's voice roughened, became laced with anger. "And how has our loyalty been rewarded?" he asked rhetorically. "Our sworn men have been ambushed and murdered. My daughter has been abducted, on the very eve of her wedding day. My son languishes in a black cell, falsely accused of treason." He paused for a shuddering breath; Hoster had learned rhetoric from some of the best, but he could detect no hint of falsehood in the Northman's apparent emotions. "I will not permit myself to think of the torments that even now they may be suffering."
Rickard's anger was in his eyes now, hard as stones. "I wrote to the King, telling him of the injury inflicted on my house and humbly requesting that I be granted justice, as the Conqueror had sworn. And in answer to my plea," his voice rose to an ursine roar as he brandished the missive, "I am summoned to King's Landing to answer the charge of treason!"
The whole hall held its breath as Rickard lowered his hand. "Two hundred years and more of fealty and leal service," he rumbled, "answered with murder, kidnapping, and base calumny. It cannot be borne." His eyes swept the hall. "Aerys Targaryen has summoned me to King's Landing," he said, his voice terribly calm, "And to King's Landing I will go. But I do not go to answer this false charge of treason. I go to King's Landing to claim the justice that I am owed, and if it is refused me, I will take it."
Silence stretched for an unbearably long moment after Rickard's speech until Jon Arryn stood up. "All that my lord Stark says is true," he said firmly. "Men who have given leal service cannot stand by when their fealty is rewarded by gross injury and deadly insult." His eyes, old and wreathed in wrinkles but still as keen as those of the falcon on his sigil, swept the hall. "We have all of us given leal service to House Targaryen since the Conqueror was crowned. But the dragons of House Targaryen are dead, and what remains of them are mere serpents, degenerate scions of a failing line, who have forgotten not just their honor but their reason. You all know well the tales of the madness of Aerys, and you know just as well the madness that Rhaegar has succumbed to." He paused, eyes still sweeping the assembled lords. "A king who wrongs his people so is no king," he said softly. "By all the gods, my lords, how long shall we suffer these madmen to tear at us? I for one shall not suffer it for even another minute." He turned to Rickard. "I will ride with you to King's Landing," he proclaimed, "and we shall have an answer from Aerys the Mad for this insult."
Robert Baratheon stood. "I'm coming also," he said flatly. "And after we have settled with Aerys, I will find my Lyanna, wherever that bastard Rhaegar has hidden her. And if the kidnapper objects," he drew his sword and raised it high, his eyes blazing fury, "then may the Gods have mercy on him, for I will not!"
Hoster stood as well, the eyes of his vassal lords hot upon him. "It is not meet that such tyranny go unanswered," he snarled, finally allowing himself to feel the fury that he had been biting back for the past two sennights. "I will see justice done for this banditry, if I have to twist Aerys's arms to breaking to get it from him."
Jon Umber barked a single syllable of thunderous laughter as he stood forth. "Leave some for the rest of us, my lords," he said in mock-chiding tones, his beady eyes twinkling. "Your quarrel with the dragons is ours as well." The vastly proportioned northman drew his sword and held it out in salute. "Justice and vengeance!" he roared.
Every lord in the hall rose to their feet, and the drawing of their swords in the late afternoon sunlight slanting through the windows was like sudden flame. "Justice and vengeance!" they chorused. "Justice and vengeance! JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE!"