Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and elements from A Song of Ice and Fire belong to George R.R. Martin. No copyright infringement is intended.
For the first time Catelyn found Winterfell gloomy. Most of its men were gone and everyone knew that not all of them would be coming back. Summer had begun only recently and the days were long and sunny, but war cast a pall on everything. Sunshine seemed dimmer than it truly was, the sounds of children playing seemed shushed, and the nights stretched on forever.
She wished she was home. Winterfell is my home now,, she reminded herself, not Riverrun. At least she had had her sister Lysa for company during the last war. Here she had only servants. I have the children. The children were a comfort, but they were too young to be company. Five year old Robb preferred running around with his bastard half brother to sitting with his mother, and while two year old Sansa liked to be cuddled and sang to, she needed frequent, lengthy naps.
In the south it was common for highborn maidens to make extended visits to cousins and friends, or to their liege lord's castle, to learn more about the world and to meet potential husbands. Catelyn would have gladly welcomed the daughters and unmarried sisters of these northern lords, but there were few of them and they seemed uninterested in more than a brief stay at Winterfell. All in all, it was a lonely place, though she had never felt so when Ned was here.
Thinking of her husband did not improve her mood. Like any wife whose husband had gone to war, she was afraid he would die in battle. But she had another fear - that Ned would bring home another bastard. It would not matter, only that he comes home. It did matter though. The more she had gotten to know her husband, the less sense Jon Snow's presence here - indeed, his very existence - made. Ned was not one to slake his lust casually. He took no other bedmates but her, even when she'd been unavailable to him the weeks after Sansa's birth. If he were to take some woman while he was away, Catelyn feared it would involve his soul as well as his body. What will you do, Ned?
She had to stop thinking about that. Ned had left only a week ago and it would be many months before he returned. She would drive herself to bitterness if she dwelled on unpleasant possibilities all that time. She raised her spoon to her mouth and lowered it without tasting the soup. She had no stomach for food. She had eaten her meals privately until today when she remembered that she needed to keep the castle together. The hall was so empty and somehow darker without the men and their laughing and arguing.
Catelyn rose from the great seat of the Starks. When she did not move, people looked at her. "It is too mournful and we do not have cause to be mournful. Will we greet our men with this sad silence, or with joyous song?"
She looked at them expectantly and they looked back at her. They liked their lady, but if Catelyn did her duty well, they would love her. Wives who could become widows, children who could become orphans, old men whose sons might die before them; they looked. Then a chubby girl who worked in the laundry stood. "With songs, m'lady," she shouted.
"Then we should practice, so our voices are at their sweetest when they return," Catelyn said. "We shall have a contest. One of you will sing for us each night, and each moon we'll choose the best singer and he or she will be awarded a silver stag."
They cheered at that and Catelyn sat down feeling heartened. She tried the soup again, but her stomach still felt sick. She did not think she was becoming ill; she had no fever or feeling of weakness. Of course. She had experienced such stomach sickness before, twice. If she was correct, it was only now starting. Ned had left her with a babe in her belly. Catelyn gave up on dinner and sat back and just watched her people. She fancied that Winterfell was a little brighter already.