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Someone was asking about Brynden Tully: In the books he wasn't at the Wedding at all. It suits my purpose to also not have him at the Red Wedding as someone needs to man Riverrun. So, I'm going with the books.

Chapter Two: Seven Blessings

The last thing Robb remembered was drowning. Deep in the river, the current pulled him down and down again. But now he was running. His racing footsteps echoed off a high vaulted ceiling; torch flames swayed in the slipstream as he ran past them, making the shadows dance. All around him the Winter Kings gripped their rusted swords, watching his flight through the endless crypts with granite-eyed contempt. Running away? As well you might, the King who lost the North…

But he was drowning. His lungs burned and a cold sweat prickled his burning skin. He ran past his grandfather, his uncle and his aunt. He ran past the place where his father should be, and slammed into the next statue as if it had appeared out of nowhere. He reeled backwards, slamming into the cold flagstones as he hit the ground and knocked the breath from his lungs. Gasping, he rolled over and tried to pick himself up, but he could only get to his knees.

Still on his knees, he looked up at what he'd run into. It wasn't another statue. It was a plinth, topped with a hacked and bleeding corpse, it's head gone, replaced with the head of a direwolf. Grey Wind's tongue lolled from his bloodied maws, slack and dry as dust. A paper crown stiff with dried blood was askew on his head. Grey fur, matted with yet more blood.

Struck dumb with the terror of it, Robb forced himself to look into the wolf's eyes. They were dull and glassy, where once they had burned yellow in life. And there he saw himself palely reflected, giving him the jolt he needed to be on his way. Back on his feet, his knees were weak and sore, but he ran all the same. Breathless and still dazed, he ran up the stone, turnpike stair. Somewhere, a dog was barking.

He took the steps two at a time, racing for the surface as the dog's barking grew louder and louder. Away from the light of the torches, it was too dark to see. An invisible hand reached out, pressing on his shoulder as if trying to drag him back into the darkness of the crypts. He was having none of that and kept on running until he reached the heavy weirwood door. He fell on the doors, throwing them open and landing in a pool of dazzling light.

All the while, the dog kept barking. Robb sat up, still dazzled and gasping for breath. His vision cleared slowly, the pain in his thigh and shoulder returning. A hut revealed itself around him. A wooden hut with a packed earth floor and barking dog. His leg was bound and a poultice had fallen off his shoulder when he sat up, abruptly knocked out of his fevered dreams.

The last thing he remembered was the river. He scrambled ashore, just as they paraded the wolf-headed corpse through the ruins of grounds. He remembered the mocking chants of "all hail the King in the North". He slid back into the river after that, and that was the last he remembered. Drowning with the corpses all around him.

Now this. A hut the gods only knew where and a barking dog for company. He tried to move, but hot pain lanced through his leg and torso. Cursing aloud, he shrank back onto the straw mattress he woke up on. It wasn't a proper bed, just a stuffed straw mattress on the ground. A dark red stain showed where he had bled during the night. Likewise, the night shirt he had been dressed in bore strange stains and he dared not think too hard on what their origins were.

The dog was whimpering and scratching at the door now. Robb froze, turning to look at him. He hadn't the faintest idea who would come through that door. The wisest thing to do would be to silence the dog. To kill it. But whoever owned him would be back soon, anyway. And whoever else was here and had taken care of him. His wounds were bound and his body was clean. His clothes had been washed and now lay folded on a wicker chair next to the mattress.

All the same, his stomach churned and his nerves scattered. In limbo, he couldn't do anything. Until the door opened, letting in a long shaft of bright sunlight. He found himself looking up at a man of at least six feet, with a shock of thick grey hair. His feet were bare, black and caked in dirt. Robb's throat constricted, his heartbeat racing as he looked up at the giant, who smiled down at him benignly.

"Gods be praised, you're awake," he declared, sounding genuinely pleased. "Well, I heard Dog barking away and I thought something must've happened. Tell me now, lad, how do?"

He closed the door behind him and Robb could see he had a brace of rabbits slung over one shoulder. A seven-pointed star hung around his neck on an old bootlace. A Septon, but not like any he had seen before.

"W-who are you?" he rasped, finding his throat dry and sore.

He tried to sit up again, only for the Septon to ease him back onto the mattress.

"Septon Meribald," he answered, cheerily. "You're a Northman, I know. But don't fret, I won't try and convert you- "

"How did I get here?" he asked, cutting over the Septon's promises.

"Ah, that," he answered. Meribald lifted Robb's clothes and sat in the wicker chair, still with the rabbits over one shoulder, bound at the feet. "I found you among the dead on the banks of the Green Fork, about four or five miles downriver of the Twins. I'd heard about the massacre and come to pray over the dead and bring what comfort I could to the dying. When I found you, you were surrounded by corpses, pale and cold as death itself you were. But then you moved, and you retched up a gutful of river water right into my lap. You mumbled something then sunk right back into unconsciousness. So, I slung you over my donkey and brought you straight here."

"And … and you tended my wounds?"

Meribald nodded. "Aye, lad. There's infection there, but I think you've slept off the worst of it. It's been almost two weeks."

Robb felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. "Two weeks? Gods, I have to go. I can't stay here- "

"Wait!" Meribald implored, sitting him back down again. "Wait another day or two, lad. You'll get nowhere in your condition, and certainly not back North. Now you just hang on there while I make us some rabbit stew, lad."

Meribald was right, of course. His injuries screamed at him every time he breathed, never mind trying to walk. And he couldn't go North because he had no home to go to any more. Exhausted and bewildered, he leaned against the wooden wall of the hut and closed his eyes in despair. It was clear that the Septon had no idea who he was, just that he was a Northern soldier called to war.

If he did suspect more, he said nothing. He opened the door to let the dog out and followed him, leaving the door open as he went, Robb could still see him, where he proceeded to skin and wash the rabbits. While they were hung on a line to drain, the Septon got a fire going. Finally, Robb had the strength to move again. Ignoring the pain in his wounds, he stumped outside to see if he could at least help prepare supper. Half way across the floor of the hut, he almost fell over.

By the time he made it there, the rabbit was already boiling in a pot over the open fire. All Robb could do was sit back down, cross-legged and watch over it while Septon Meribald pottered around.

"Do you remember much about the massacre?" Meribald asked.

"I was outside, on the bridge," Robb replied. "They just started killing us."

"Oh, aye, a terrible business right enough," Meribald said. He was dicing carrot and turnip on an old wooden board laid out on a trestle table.

The hut was little more than a shed, but there was a larger holdfast nearby. To Robb, it looked unoccupied. Dotted around the land, other dwellings were little more than wattle and daub, surrounded by thinning woodlands. It seemed he had, at least, washed up on the right side of the river.

"Old Lord Hoster's daughter was killed," Meribald continued. "I met her once, when I was younger and new to the Faith. They say she had her throat cut to the bone."

Robb jolted, and passed it off as another spasm of pain. "What about the King in the North?"

He remembered seeing the corpse with the wolf head. Were they really passing that off as him?

"Him too," Meribald replied. "Decapitated inside the hall. His Queen stabbed through the belly and thrown into the river. So many dead; numbers beyond counting."

There was no disguising his yelp as anything other than what it was. It was enough to bring Meribald back over, fussing over him and trying to get him back inside the hut. However, Robb decided that he had heard enough and let himself be half-carried back inside, where he could hide his grief. Grief that he had to contain anyway, less the Septon begin to question his identity.

So, the Freys and Boltons had passed off that mutilated corpse as him? The wolf's head used to disguise the fact that it wasn't him at all. It meant that the Riverlands as a whole, the Lannisters even, wouldn't be looking for him. However, Roose Bolton was no fool. He would have a few trusted men out searching. The Freys, too. And there were more than enough Frey's to go around.

Every time he tried to formulate a plan of escape, his thought returned to Talisa and the child they would never have. Catelyn was in there too, rising at the forefront of his mind. But, he couldn't let it show. He had to hold it together. An hour or so later, he was back outside in the fading light, letting Septon Meribald ladle rabbit stew into an earthenware bowl. He tried to push it away, reluctant to drain the man's resources. Besides, he wasn't hungry. His stomach churned and his grief weighed heavily on him. It felt like a lead weight stuck in his gut.

"Eat," said the Septon.

"I need to get home."

"You need to eat, if you want to make it there alive."

Robb had little resistance left so just gave up arguing. He managed to lift the spoon from bowl to mouth. It was a monumental effort.

"If you don't mind my asking, lad, who are you?" asked the Septon, kindly. "You don't have to answer if you wish not to. But just so I have something to call you other than 'lad'."

"Cley Cerwyn," he answered. "Our House is sworn to House Stark."

Cley Cerwyn had been Bran's friend, killed after the Ironborn took Winterfell. Killed alongside Bran and Rickon, he remembered. The full extent of his failure widened in his mind. Winterfell was gone, the North had been lost and his entire family and army massacred far from home. He tried to disentangle all his mistakes, but it was a garbled mess in his head.

The cookfire which Septon Meribald had used for stew was still crackling not far away. When Robb looked up, he could see the other man looking back at him contemplatively. Robb couldn't shift the uneasy feeling he had sensed a lie.

"House Stark is no more, Cley," he said, softly. "If I were you, I'd find a dead Bolton somewhere and pray to the Old Gods and the New that his livery fits you. Pass yourself off as one of them and they might just let you through."

Robb would sooner stick hot pins in his eyes, but thanked the Septon all the same. He was only trying to help.

"I can guide you as far as the Neck, but no farther," Meribald added. "The Riverlands are my territory."

Robb thanked him again, but had no intention of taking him up on the offer. But he grew curious about the other man, he was unlike any other septon he had met. And, for an hour or so at least, he wanted to hear about someone else's life. Any, but his own. So, he asked and wasn't disappointed.

While Meribald told him all about his life, how he fought in the war of the Ninepenny Kings and then joined the Faith, he slipped the rest of his stew to Dog. If Dog had any other name, Meribald said, he had not revealed it. So, the dog was literally just called Dog. Whatever the case, he was a friendly old dog. A small comfort to a King who had lost everything.

"I only joined the Faith so I could get women into bed," Meribald confessed, eyes lingering over the fire. "Now, I wander the Riverlands from village to village, barefoot as penance for my sins and bringing relief to the poor and the needy. As you can imagine, since the War of the Five Kings, my services have been more in demand than ever. I mean no disrespect to either Northman or Riverman alike, but it makes no difference who burns your fields or ransacks your village. Whether lion or wolf, the effect is the same: starvation and suffering."

There was no recrimination in the Septon's voice, but Robb got the inference. While he had played his game of thrones, people had suffered. People he had never met and people he had never known existed. Land had been pillaged, crops put to the torch and women raped while their screaming children looked on. Undoubtedly, all had been put to the sword once the raiders had finished. Robb said nothing, but stared into the now empty bowl of stew that Dog was now licking clean.

"And what was it all for?" Meribald continued. He sounded like he was talking to himself more than Robb. "A Northern Lord was wrongly executed, so the wrong of an innocent man's death was met with the deaths of thousands of other innocent people who had no part in any of it. And there's only us left picking up the pieces afterwards. No disrespect to you, Lord Cerwyn. I know your type have no choice but to follow your Lord into battle."

"No, you're right," Robb replied, flatly. If it wasn't so imperative that he keep his identity secret, he would have defended himself. Instead, all he could do was bite back the retort and stare fixedly at the bowl in his hands. "Well, that's the end of it now. Robb Stark is dead, the war is over."

"I wish no man dead, Cley and I'm sure Stark had honourable intentions. But if his death restores order and I never have to tend the dead after a battle again, I'll be glad of it," Meribald replied. He got up and called Dog to heel. "Well, Cley, you're more than welcome to stay here as long as you need. But, now you're awake and over the worst of it, Dog and I will be moving on soon enough. If not on the morrow, then the day after."

It was dark by the time they finished and Robb was back in the disused hut having received the Septon's customary 'seven blessings'. Just the one would be enough for him, he thought wryly. Once, the hut would have been a storage place for one of the larger farms nearby. Now it was abandoned and the farm burned down during the war. Not just the war; his war. All it was now was a handy resting place for footsore wandering Septons and the strays they picked up on the road. Strays like him.

That night, he lay awake on the straw mattress and stared up at the roof. Grief numbed him, leaving him cold from the tips of his fingers to the ends of his toes. He wondered why he was still alive, why he didn't just drown in that river. Had Theon's god saved him? He almost laughed. But no, Krakens didn't live in fresh water.

While all was still silent, he rose from the mattress and dressed himself. He only paused to unpick the direwolf badge from his tunic. There was no use in advertising his allegiances now. With no possessions to collect, he was free to walk out. But walking still hurt. All the same, he had to do it.

Dog was tethered outside another shed. He raised his head from his front paws and watched as Robb hobbled past, but made no sound as he went. Still so many miles from Riverrun, he would be needing those seven blessings. The first blessing he spent on a horse that was cropping at the grass in its field. Unsaddled and unharnessed, it would still do to carry him southward as best he could. And, even if he died on the way, at least the smallfolk could rest easy knowing there would be no more war coming their way.

"You can't seriously want to marry that obnoxious shit." Despite the harshness of his tone, Loras looked perfectly relaxed as he reclined in a chair on the terrace. "Ever since the massacre at the Twins, he's been insufferable. I mean, more insufferable than usual."

Margaery smiled. "What I want doesn't come into it, brother. You know that."

He met her gaze, shooting her a knowing look as if to say: we both know that's horse shit. Either way, she was unconcerned. She was no Sansa Stark and Joffrey was surprisingly easy to manage. However, she wondered what it would be like once they were married, once Joffrey no longer had to play the pliant lover and she was his captive wife. Then she watched as Loras frowned and flicked a speck of dust from off his white cloak. One of the finest swordsmen in the Seven Kingdoms, she probably had all the protection she needed.

"I mislike the idea of you being married to some malcontent who gains more pleasure from torturing little animals to death than he does in the bedchamber," he pressed on. After a deep breath, he leaned forward again and looked at her curiously. "Aren't you even curious about loving someone?"

It felt like an accusation. "I love you-"

"I mean loving someone properly," he cut in, impatiently. "You married Renly so he could have our army; you're marrying Joffrey for the crown, for father's ambitions. And throughout it all, you've foregone your own feelings."

A dark shadow passed over his face and she knew he was thinking of Renly. 'When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.' Those were the words he had used to Tyrion Lannister. That was Renly. But, the luxury of choice was never going to be hers.

"Perhaps, if I had a sister," she said. "An older one, preferably, then the pressure would not be so great. But this is our reality, Loras. Sometimes, I dream that I've run off into the sunset with some noble, dashing lord. But, in the end, I always wake up to reality."

The wedding was happening in the morning, but for now she was still in the Maidenvault. If she looked out of her window, she could see the throne room. Inside there, the banquet would be held. Over seventy courses, entertainments and singers had been dragged in from all over the seven kingdoms.

"They're calling it the Red Wedding," she said, quietly.

"What?"

She didn't even know why she said that. As she thought of the preparations going into her own wedding, she found herself suddenly remembering Edmure Tully's. It occurred to her that all Cersei would have to do is lock the throne room doors and do what Walder Frey had done to the Starks.

"Luckily for us, Cersei needs our grain and supplies from the Reach," she added. "And our men. If they did that to us, they'd lose everything. Stannis is still out there, somewhere. Perhaps we should remind her of that."

"Oh, you're talking about the Starks," said Loras. "That's another thing, Margaery. I can't believe we're getting into bed with – literally and metaphorically – with people who would slaughter unarmed wedding guests under the protection of guest rights. What's worse, our beloved Queen Mother is now demanding we demonstrate our loyalty by taking Riverrun for House Lannister."

Margaery frowned. "I thought we already had Riverrun. Everyone was massacred and Edmure Tully is captive."

"Bryden Tully was not at the wedding," Loras pointed out. "He was left behind to hold the castle and he's refusing to surrender. Apparently, he also has Arya Stark in there with him."

"Sansa's sister?" she asked, sitting up. "Everyone thinks she's dead."

Loras shrugged. "It's only a rumour."

All the same, Margaery filed away that snippet of information and rose to her feet. "Well, I cannot keep Grandmother waiting any longer."

Loras got up as well, ready to escort her to Lady Olenna's chambers. "I cannot think why Sansa Stark's hairnet is so important, but apparently it is and Grandmother must discuss it with you as a matter of urgency."

"If she saw the hairnet she would probably just sling it over her shoulder, as she did with most of my wedding jewels."

Loras might have missed the undertones, but Margaery hadn't. Something was afoot and she was about to find out what.

Leaving the Maidenvault, they stepped out into a late afternoon still warm and balmy. She looked up Maegor's, where Cersei watched over her realm from her terrace. To the left, close to the Blackwater, Sansa Stark ducked into the godswood, furtively glancing over her shoulder. Even now, weeks after the deaths of her mother, brother and sister by law, her eyes were still red and swollen with tears.

For a moment, Margaery thought to run after her. If Arya really was at Riverrun then Sansa had a right to know. But when she glanced over her shoulder to where the girl was lurking by the godswood, she found she had already vanished. Margaery hesitated, hoping she would reappear, only for Loras to gently tug on her elbow.

"Sister, come," he said. "We can't keep the old lady waiting."

She nodded, a silent gesture of assent. Meanwhile, close to the throne room, and out across the streets, gold and green bunting lined the route to the Great Sept of Baelor. In a matter of hours, her union would be tolling across Blackwater Bay and her neck would snap under the weight of a crown.

Thanks again for reading, reviews would be great if you have a minute.

Apologies again for the long update wait. I wanted to finish Stitch first, and Stitch took a lot longer than I at first anticipated. Then I got stuck on where to take this story (I had it all planned out, then lost the plans).

Anyway, hope you enjoy.