A/N: I just want to state, ere we begin, how humbled I am by your praise and positive reception of my story. All of you, who had Favorited and Followed and Reviewed: thank you. :-)
Now, let's dispense with the chick-flick moment and get on with it, shall we?
Chapter Four – The Eyes of his Wolf
Robb
Robb Stark streaked in and out of the trees, padding over fallen leaves made wet by the rain on soft and silent paws. Up ahead he smelled horses – gamey, unsatisfying, hard hooves and bones – and with them, humans. Humans were tastier, though not as tasty as oxen or chicken or… what had that sweet thing been called? The one held in the hand of Summer-Sun Flower-Maid? She who smelled of golden roses?
Honeycake, Grey Wind. Honeycake.
"It's got to be the Mountain" his ears piqued up and turned, noting the source of the sound. Humans speaking. Westerland accent. Why was he told that? He did not care how humans spoke, only how they thought of Wolves. "He's the biggest. He's the strongest".
"Bulls are bigger than lions" another human spoke back at the first. Bulls? Like the one who saw green when he slept? No. Bulwer is not that bull. They speak in images, allegories. A fool human thing to do. Things were or were not, had been or would become. Nothing was something that was another thing too, except for magic. And you say humans speak in riddles. I can hardly comprehend you. "Doesn't mean I'd pick a bull in a fight. If the bull had fangs and claws, I would".
"Well then, the Mountain or our man Jaime?" the second one said, and he found himself stopping for a hint. Our man Jaime? Jaime… The Lion. Kingslayer. Lannister. He growled and bared all his teeth. Lannister. He hated them. He hated them all. Their blood was rich and thick, but he spat it all out. Bad blood. Bad humans. They put Father to death. Yes. They needed to die. All of them. No. Not all. Why not? Pups grew up, learned to hate just as their sires did. Kill the pups before they grow teeth to bite you with. I don't kill children or innocents. Focus, Grey Wind.
"If he ever gets out". Out? Out into the forest or the plains? But they were there already. Out of my dungeon. That dark place where Kingslayer is kept. "Loras Tyrell?"
"Loras Tyrell" one human scoffed to the other, as if he was stupid. They were both stupid. Sitting guarding all that juicy horsemeat without even looking at it, as if it could tend to itself just because it was alive. Horses were stupid too. Especially Armstark. "He's prettier than the queen".
"I don't care about pretty. That sister of his is the pretty one" Loras… Tyrell… Sister… Like Nymeria? Like Aria? Yes, like Nymeria and Aria. He is talking about Margaery. At the memory of the sweet things, fed by kind hands that could scratch in just the right places and smelled so nice, Robb began to wag his tail. "He's better with a sword than any of them".
"How good could he be? He's been stabbing Renly Baratheon for years, and Renly isn't dead". They laughed, but when the horses, having caught Robb's scent when he was very close to them, they gradually quieted. "The horses seem a little afrightened to you?"
"They're horses" the human scoffed as Robb rounded the enclosure of living horsemeat – Focus, Grey Wind – staying in the shadows and the darkness so that their bright torches and their little fire would not make them see him. "They are afrightened by their own shadows". That they were, but humans were, too. And humans should be. Shadows could kill, if ruled the right way.
"Hush" one human said, rising from the log he had been sitting on with the other human. They were on the close end of a great camp of humans and horses, and beyond it were stone walls, an enclosure for humans just like the fence that enclosed the horses. And it kept them just as safe. Pinkmaiden. Flying the Lion banner. Traitors. The horses snorted, whinnied, cried. Afraid of him. Good. "Do you hear that? There's something out there".
Yes, there was. In one smooth motion he leapt out of the darkness and into the ring of light, closing his jaws around the human's neck, filling his mouth with bad blood-
Robb opened his eyes and was back in his own body, sitting atop Armstark in the darkness of the stony ridges to the south of Pinkmaiden, the castle tall on the hill before the small town along the banks of the far Red Fork. They expected his forces to come down the east road, or from the northern passage, if they expected at all. But such was not the case, and their sentries and outlying campers would die before they told the main camp otherwise.
It had been an odd thing, though. One moment he had been looking out over the camp and the castle against the backdrop of the rain-filled darkness, wishing that he could have gone with Grey Wind and seen what he had seen, and then he had closed his eyes and… he had.
Though it was not that clear a divide. One being flowed into the other, merging and breaking apart, until one's soul seemed splintered. Robb thought that perhaps if he was stronger, more powerful, dreamt the green more easily, then he could have completely mastered Grey Wind. But he had been nothing but a passenger in the Direwolf's head, like a sick or wounded man in a carriage or wagon not his own.
He set his teeth and ignored his thoughts. He could determine the root of this sorcery another time. Now there was killing to be done.
Hearing the screams of the Lannister sentry drowned out by the crashing rain Robb Stark drew Lionslayer from his hip. He could taste the blood of man on his lips, and maybe to Grey Wind it tasted rotten and bad but to him it was as sweet as wine. "Now for wrath! No more silence! Winter comes for House Lannister!"
Holding his sword aloft he signalled the charge of his gathered cavalry, and before Smalljon blew his horn Roren Bulwer shouted. "The King in the North!" And from the hills west of Pinkmaiden the North came thundering down on the sleeping Lannister army while two thousand spearmen under the Bullskull banner marched on the gates of the Maiden castle. Again and again, under the sound of the horns and the beating of House Bulwer's horned drums, they called out the name of the King of Winter, and as they swept the spears of the Westerlands away before them the freezing rain turned to snow.
The gates of the castle on the hill closed shut with only a hundred men inside it, leaving the rest of the disorganised Lannister force to die in the cold. Though the centre of the camp and onto the gates of the camp came the Stark King himself riding on his snowy steed, side by side with his enormous wolf, followed by the Lords of the North.
The Lannister soldiers had not been prepared for this. After a gruelling forced march all the way from Lannisport they had been harried by outriders and skirmishers that had cut their supply lines and killed their sentries. Then they had scared off a token force and won a victory, at least in their own minds, and when the gates of Pinkmaiden had swung open before them they had made to camp and await the arrival of Tywin Lannister's army from out of Harrenhall. They were tired, worn down by months of war and the cold of the march, and they had celebrated with drinking and whoring.
Still, the defenders of the keep, the elite guard of Ser Steffon Lannister and a few sworn men to House Piper, settled in for a siege. It was not to be. The North did not suffer betrayal, even perceived betrayal, lightly, and when he rode up to the gate, just beyond the reach of the Lannister archers' bows, Robb Stark regarded it with a cold stare before he raised his voice.
"Clansmen! Umber men! Berserkers! Lift up your axes! The keep falls before dawn!" Norrey, Wull and Umber men charged the dropped portcullis of Pinkmaiden's gate and lifted it up onto their shoulders in mighty strains, allowing their fellows and compatriots to set upon the gates itself with axes and hatchets. The defenders made to fight them off, with spears and with rocks and red hot sand, but the Bulwer troops began assaulting the walls with arrows and ropes and ladders. Faced with enemies on all sides the defenders faltered quickly, all the while the Northern cavalry slaughtered the few remaining Lannister footmen that didn't manage to escape to the east down the main roads, fleeing hand over foot towards Harrenhall and the mighty Tywin.
Once the gates had fallen and the wall been taken Robb ordered the Northerners back and looked to Roren Bulwer. This was his time to prove himself. And Neversleep did not fail him then as he ordered his horsemen through the smashed gate and ordered the keep put to the sword. Servants and maids would be spared, the smallfolk would be set free and aside, those who surrendered would be taken prisoner, but no man with a sword amongst the enemy ranks would see the morning's light.
And when dawn did come the sun shone through the windows of the keep as seventeen guards and the sons and ladies of House Piper along with the Old Piper himself held the throne room. Silence had fallen over the battleworn Lannister men, their armours and livery streaked with Bulwer and Northern blood, and many a hand shook around the hilt of the sword that it held as they heard the shouts and the clamour from beyond the doors. And then a dull boom, a sound of splintering wood. The door had held, but only just, and the silence beyond it was absolute. Another boom sounded, louder than the first, and the doors flew open, broken and splintered, and in stepped the Wolf and his personal guard.
"Do you have to do that all the time?" Dacey Mormont muttered aside to Smalljon Umber, who had, as was his wont, kicked the doors open. "You always do that. Every heard of a bloody axe?"
"I do it because I like breaking things, love!" Smalljon laughed back and slung his father's greatsword of his shoulders, the Gloverblade as light as a breeze in his hands. "Come on, you fucking kneelers!" he roared at the terrified few defenders left. "Show me your hearts and I'll stab them for you!"
Of course, he knew that it wasn't him they were frightened of. Beside Robb Stark stalked his great grey Direwolf, fur all but drenched in the blood of Lannister men and their horses, snarling and baring his teeth in primal fury. "Clement Piper" spoke the Young Wolf as Grey Wind growled viciously. "Your liegelord Tully has named you Coward and Oathbreaker". He stopped and turned his gaze from the old lord to all the rest of the men in the room. "Piper men have been raiding the Lannister supply lines under my command. Your Lord is a coward, perhaps, but not all of you. If you-" he barely had time to finish the sentence before the five Lannister nobles in the room felt the tips of swords at their back and were forced forwards while the Old Piper stared. "Good choice".
"I told my father to muster his courage and stand and fight" Marq Piper, a blonde and proud man whose sword had been sheathed all the while as he refused to bare his blade against the King in the North, stepped forth along with his younger brothers and his men while his father sagged down on his stone throne, his family's ancestral Valyrian steel sword leant against his thigh. "But all he saw was how the Lannisters had burnt our halls once already. He is a coward and a cur, your Grace" Marq stepped past the Lannister prisoners to kneel before Robb Stark "but he is not an evil man".
"Let the man himself say and do that" Robb spoke up and looked past Marq, and the aged and weary Piper rose from his seat, and on stiff knees and he knelt beside his son before the King in the North. "You've surrendered, and bent the knee – but you're still an Oathbreaker. And you sided with my enemies. With the accursed Lannisters". Robb breathed in hard and though about it harder. "I will not abide Oathbreakers. Hated and accursed are they by the Gods. Clement Piper – I strip you of your lands and your titles and give them onto your son. In the eyes of the law you are dead in all but name. Lord Marq, do you have any holdings where your father can live out the rest of his days in peace?"
"We own a farm on the banks of the Red Fork. We'll send him there with a few good men, see that he's well looked after" Ser Marq Piper, now in one stroke lord of Pinkmaiden and Pinkmaiden castle, motioned to his family and his men, and handily they dragged his father out of the room as they left. Before he went the Old Piper unbelted his scabbard and thrusted it and their ancestral sword into Marq's hands. The young lord stared down on the pinkish steel with a crestfallen face. "Never had I thought to come to this in this manner".
"But you are. Make the most of it". Robb knew that look – he had felt so too, partly, when he first marched south with his father's bannermen. He stood tall as Marq knelt at his feet and laid there the Dancing Maiden, the Valyrian Steel sword of House Piper. "You swear yourself to me?"
"My castle is yours" Marq said then, in the presence of the Wolf and his Northmen and their Lannister prisoners, held back and disarmed by Bulwer and Norrey warriors. "My lands are yours. My sword is yours. My armies are yours. From this day, until the sun sets on my house, House Piper is sworn to the Starks of Winterfell". He looked up to meet the Young Wolf's eyes. "Tully might be my friend, but I serve the King of the Trident".
"Don't be a servant, man" Robb took him by the arm and raised him to his feet to stand beside him. "I could use that sword of yours in my honour guard. You ride by my side from this day on". Ser Marq said that he was honoured and fell back to his new throne as Robb nodded back to him before he gestured towards the Bulwer men holding the Lannisters by the necks and wrists. At his silent order they brought them to a line before him and pressed them down, kicking them to the back of the knees and putting all their armoured weight on their shoulders.
"Your Grace" Seffon Lannister pleaded as they forced him to his knees. "Your Grace! Mercy! Please, I beg of you, mercy! We are knights! True knights! Lord Tywin would give you great wealth is you gave us up to him-" Robb bent his armoured knees and squatted down before the blonde man, looking him right in the eye from up close. "Your Grace…"
"I am Northern, Lannister Ser" he spoke slowly, as if the man was thick or touched in the head and still needed to understand. "Knighthood and tourney are no things that interest me. And I've already got your mighty Lord Tywin's son in my dungeon. Your kin murdered my father. You think you can sway me with promises of coin?"
Forsake kindness. The cold knows no mercy.
"Smalljon" Robb stood and stepped back to draw his sword "show this Southron knight how much the North cares for Lannister gold". And as Steffon Lannister screamed in terror and begged for clemency Smalljon Umber grinned and hefted his human-handled greatsword high up behind his shoulders.
The Lannister knight did not scream for long after that.
Jon
They made camp just south of the New Gift, and finally Jon drew a sigh of relief.
Allister Thorne had not sent any riders after him. He had shouted through the barred gates of Castle Black when Jon and Drustan were on the far side of the Wall, calling him a deserter and a bastard, and told them that if they had wanted to go South they could jolly well climb back over seven hundred feet of ice to get there.
Right then all hope of every making it over or staying alive on their own North of the Wall had faded. In hindsight Drustan made jokes about it. "View was amazing up there" he told the other men around him, including Jon and Greatjon, as they made camp the night they crossed over into Umber lands. "I'll arrange travels too it when I get back to the Riverlands. I'll convince all the Lords and Ladies to go, and pay me bloody handsomely for it". He raised his hand as if he was tracing words on a banner. "'Romantic occasions for two on a giant fuck-off piece of ice'!"
"That's the bloody spirit" Greatjon Umber grinned as he slurped down the last of his bowl of rabbit stew before loudly belching. Jon was not so good natured about it all.
They had trundled up along the wall for hours, searching for something but Jon knew not what, thinking that perhaps, luck beyond luck, they'd have enough supplies to get to the gate to the Shadow Tower before they froze to death. But then Ghost had run ahead, and Jon's vision had swung around and spun, and he had seen and smelled, in the distance, a small group of people making to climb the wall. Actually climb it, not a thing of mere jest like Allister Thorne had intended. And though Jon had not told Drustan how he knew that there were Wildlings up ahead that were their salvation. The wildlings, a pair of families fleeing the North when the White Shadows came, had agreed to help them over in return for them safeguarding them to settled lands in the South.
And so Jon had said farewell to Ghost – heart-breaking as it had been – and started the climb, but now the silent white Direwolf was again by his side. He had been waiting for Jon and Drustan on the far side of the wall. He must have slinked through when a scout returned, or something of the sort. Bloody anticlimactic, really. The only good things that had come out of the climb had been a new found understanding of how Wildlings – Free Folk – thought, and that his fear of heights was now irrevocably cured. Even the Wildlings had crossed him and Drustan, just after they had touched ground South of the Wall, wanting to steal their belongings now that they did not have to drag them over the Wall themselves. Only the timely arrival of the Greatjon and his Umber men had saved them.
"Wasn't your wife a Wildling, Greatjon?" Jon asked. He had heard that from Lord Eddard – Father, he was his father by law and right now – when he was younger. It had always struck him as odd.
"Aye, so she was" Umber said with a smile, and at Jon's look he chuckled. "No, don't be sad, boy! She isn't dead! She's just not a Wildling no more. She said as much, when I got her with child the first time and I wouldn't set her aside when my father demanded it. 'You've stolen me heart, Jon', she told me. She came to raid my lands and ended up carrying my child. I had never wept before the day I said the words with her before the Heart Tree. And I've since wept only at the times when she's given me my children, bloodied and crying as they were pulled out of her and laid in my arms. Doubly when the triplets were born".
"I'm happy for the two of you, then" Jon offered, and the Greatjon grinned back. They'd be at Last Hearth in a few days, and the Lord Umber hadn't had time to stop and visit his home on the way north. He intended to make a stop there on the way South, though, orders of the King in the North be damned. "Maybe you'll father another on her in a few days?"
"She's not too old yet" Greatjon pondered "and I'll always wanted an even" he stopped and counted in his head, trying to remember how many children he had "eight. I'll show her my new scars!" he then added and lifted his hand less of two fingers, courtesy of Grey Wind, his glove cut and stitched over to cover the stumps. "That'll really get her going!" They all had a good laugh at that, Jon too in spite of his dark mood. "You see anything beyond the Wall that bears repeating, Jon Stark?" Umber then asked, fishing for a story to occupy their time, and Jon hesitated.
"No". Not yet, at least. Maybe to Robb, but not to them, who lived in the shadow of the Wall. That would only serve to frighten them unnecessarily, even if the Others came. His former brothers could handle them. At least he hoped so. "There are wild lands there, untilled and unworked. Most of it is inhospitable. If not for the Wildlings and the cold, which almost all there is, it'd be good land to live in".
"And that man made you and Drustan climb your way back to the sensible side of the Wall? Are all Black Brothers that way?" Hoster Blackwood asked, the third son of Tytos Blackwood who had been sent to the North with Greatjon to "unlearn his bookish ways". The lad was tall, Jon thought, seven feet already, but he was all elbows and legs and skin, not a hint of muscle on him.
"I'd say that Allister Thorne was a cunt" Jon said with emphasis "but that'd be disrespectful to women. I'd say he was a heartless fucking shite of a man – but that would be an insult to heartless shites everywhere". He drank deeply of the stale ale and wondered why he was so bloody philosophical about it all. "He was mean-spirited and cruel, but he was an absolutely spot-on trainer when it came to sword play. That's all I want to say about him".
"Truer words have never been spoken" Greatjon had met Ser Thorne, and to say that the two hadn't gotten on well had been an understatement. Perhaps the ire over the time Greatjon had struck the acting commander over an insult towards his wife was what had motivated him to keep Jon and Drustan in the True North. "I almost feel sorry for all the men we left there".
"Greatjon" the newly minted Lord Stark asked, and the Lord of Last Hearth stopped sharpening his axe by the young man's words. "How did Robb trade me for fifty men? How did he manage to get fifty men to swear themselves to the Night's Watch?"
"He granted them land, so his Grace did" Greatjon replied before he rolled his tongue around his mouth and spat out a seed of that dried apple before he went on sharpening the head of his great axe. "Bloody pinpricks, how I miss my Gloverblade at times. I hope my boy takes good care of it. Anyway, his Grace Robb didn't give the lands to the men themselves – that'd be bloody foolish, because Night's Watch and all. He gave it to their families, their children and wives, their closest relations, even their friends if they wanted him to. Two and a half square miles in the Whispering Woods, now dotted with huts and cottages and makeshift farms".
"Aye?" Jon put two and two together, remembering Drustan Climber's proclamation after their travels through the Haunted Forest back to the Wall. Silently he began to bristle.
"They were veterans" the Greatjon went on as he sharpened that ugly and roughforged axe "from the North and from the Riverlands and even some sellswords from across the Narrow Sea, and he had nearly five hundred men filling into his tent once the offer got out". He looked back up to Jon and grinned at him. "They're all yeoman on that land. Your sworn people. Your first bannermen, lad – how does that feel?"
Jon did not answer at first. All of it was so incredibly strange, exalted and bitter and happy all at once, and yet somehow it all felt meaningless when compared to the Others and the danger they stood for, a danger as unavoidable as the coming of Winter. "So my lordship in the South is nothing more than a ruined keep and some farmers?"
"You're the lord of five square miles of a green woodland valley in the heart of the Riverlands, lad, only wee bit of which is settled by your people. The Lordship of the Whispering Woods is yours, granted to you by your liege the King of Winter. Even the most honourable bastards would kill their own mothers for a chance like that at greatness". The Greatjon glared and turned back to his axe. "Show some fucking respect, boy".
"I didn't mean it like that" Jon said back as he looked into the campfire. The others huddled and shivered still, shaking in the cold, but Jon didn't. He had kept watch on the top of the Wall and seen the Others with his own eyes. He hadn't felt the cold in the South since. Everything south of the Wall was South to him now. "I'd kill for my brother even before all this began. And he's given me everything that I want. I'd die for him. The King in the North!" he spoke up, and all of Umber's men muttered along with him.
"If this is the North, I want to go home" Hos complained loudly and hacked his teeth. "King of the Trident, more like!" At that Greatjon laughed.
"We'll be south soon enough" he assured them all. "And when we've delivered Lord Stark here onto Robb we'll go kill ourselves some fucking Lannisters to celebrate". He looked back to Jon once again, grinning like the madman that Jon suspected that he was. "What say you to that, Lord Stark?"
"Gladly, Lord Umber" Jon answered with a smile.
Margaery
For their first few days of their flight northwards and to the North Margaery's little fellowship was hunted by Florent and Stormland riders.
It was as if they were the foxes and the riders were the hunters thundering through the woods, their horses chasing them relentlessly over the northwards roads from Bitterbridge, past streams and glens and villages, their horns following them through all hours of the night. For four days and nights they rode unending, and on the third day Megga and Alla had to be tied to their saddles to keep them from falling off. But Margaery had forced herself to stay awake, to cling to her horse Rosa's mane, to urge them on and to keep their spirits up. The Valemen proved hardy, the Tyrell squires and guards of her and Loras proved themselves strong, and their horses proved quick and stalwart. Day by day the arrows out of the woods diminished in number and the trumpets in the distance grew fewer. And on the fifth day, crossing a bridge over into the Riverlands, Ser Royce, Loras and Brienne had decided that they had run long enough.
The three had taken up positions on that bridge, Ser Royce in the centre with Brienne in her blue armour to one side and Loras in the silver flowers to the other, the Royce men with javelins and slings in their hands on the hither side as the pursuers had come thundering down the far banks. When the quarrels and the arrows had begun to rain down on the knights Loras and Brienne had thrown themselves to the sides of the bridge to take cover – but Robar Royce hadn't. He stood stalwart in the middle of the bridge, the gleaming bronze flashing fiercely about his body in the morning light as the projectiles splintered against his armour like reeds. He told them that none would pass that day. That he and his would end them all.
They had tried anyway.
That had been three days hence. The day of the bridge Margaery had bid her following rest in a nearby village tavern, calling herself Marya Royce to disguise herself as Robar's niece though she really hadn't needed to bother. The innkeep did not care about their names or their loyalties, only the quality of their Highgarden gold. After stocking up on their supplies and traded some of their tired and broken horses they had gone on their way before dawn broke the morning after, and they had been on the northernbound road since.
She had shared a tent with her brother and her ladies in waiting, most of whom had been embarrassed at first at the very noting of sharing a tent with a man, but when they had been assured by Loras and his now so vacant gaze that he held no love for the female form in his heart they quickly grew accustomed to him. During the days he would ride in the front of their procession with Brienne, sometimes speaking quietly, most times giving the road in front of him an empty, heart-broken stare. From Brienne Margaery came to know that Loras had killed two members of the Rainbow guard in his rage after Renly died: Ser Guyard Morrigen, the Green, and Ser Emmon Cuy, the Yellow. He had thought that Brienne had attacked him, too, but by her tears and her sobbing as she held her dead king in her arms he had known that she was not to blame. It was Stannis.
Margaery did not know what to make of the shadow that Brienne had seen. She believed that the mountainous woman had seen what she had seen, but she also believed that she had been grieving and in shock. And a shadow, that looked like Stannis? Either it was an illusion, a trick of the light hiding a deadly assassin, or…
Or it was true, and it was as much sorcery as the runes that protected Ser Royce from the blades of his foes.
By the Seven that are One and their Blessed Light, how the fabrics of the world come apart in these dark days.
On the seventh day since their flight from Bitterbridge, no hunters hot on their heels, Margaery and her ladies rode with Robar Royce at the centre of their following, led by Brienne and Loras and ten Tyrell riders from the van and two of the bastards of Vanderhart who rode for Royce leading the dozen men at their backs. Margaery was talking quietly to her ladies that sunny midday, her cloak drawn close about her to keep out the brisk wind, and snow lay in the ditches around the road, dirty and splattered with mud against the white.
"I saw Lord Stannis, once" Elinor said quietly from behind her in the saddle, the two sitting on one horse to share space. Luckily for Rosa, a warmblood trotter that Margaery had been given by her brother Willas on her twelfth nameday, neither of them were very heavy. "He was a stern man, almost cruel, but he was honourable. But I heard that the Florent man said that his men could-" she stopped talking and swallowed hard, her arms encircling Margaery's waist tighter. "Could… spoil… my lady".
"You are right, Lady Tyrell" Robar Royce inclined his head at her. "Stannis has always been more honourable than that" he glanced to the front of their procession where Loras rode, and hoped to the Gods that the Knight of Flowers had not heard him say that. "He would have commanded the Florents to be civil – if he was the one commanding them. As far as I know, no word came from Stannis that set the camp aflame and turned brother against brother. They were the actions of petty men who sought to take what had been denied them, and who wanted to curry favour with their new Lord. Greedy and honourless, they acted as their black hearts commanded them".
"As opposed to you, Ser Royce?" Alyce Graceford asked from her and Alla's horse, Megga having gotten to ride on one of the mules they had bought in Lambgrove, a small village perched on the farmland road north of Bitterbridge, not even worth to be noted down on a map. Ser Royce looked pale now, his cheeks sunken as he rode, and on that day after the fighting on the bridge he had swayed in his saddle and almost fallen from it, twice. A tiredness seemed to lay over his highborn features, and he slouched under his armour, as if it weighed hard on him.
"I was only ever loyal, Lady Graceford" Robar spoke back to her, a slight blush in his cheeks, almost as if he was ashamed. "My heart was to Renly, but the blood that beats in it is the blood of the True Men. The First Men. And though it has been ages since a High King rose, he had always carried the name Stark. I am a Royce. We Remember". He looked up and past Margaery and her ladies as a galloping could be heard from farther up the northwards heading road, and when Margaery did too she spotted one of Royce's squires – she wanted to say… Farring? Ferrier? – riding fast against them.
"My Lord!" the spindly and crimson-haired young man panted as he reigned in his rounsey and bowed in the saddle towards Ser Royce before he did the same to Margaery. "My Lady Tyrell! I've news!" He had been their scout of sorts, their far rider on the fastest horse. "Of Pinkmaiden! I'm-" he coughed at the road's dust in his throat "I'm not certain if it's good news or bad".
"All news are welcome now, good or bad" the Bronze Knight nodded at the squire. Farthing? Ferret? No, that couldn't be right. Oh, she simply had to ask, or it would drive her out of her mind. "What is it, man? Speak! Cat got your tongue?"
"There was a battle at Pinkmaiden, my Lord, my Lady, my Ladies" the young man stammered out like a – Farling! Now she remembered! Thank the Seven for that! She would have been thinking on that all day otherwise – stuttering mule. "Westerlander banners and armours trodden underfoot cover the land. Five thousand men camp around the castle. They have… they have queer banners, my Lady. Skulls and dead trees and ravens and bears and one, one was a man without skin! And above it all, from the highest tower of the citadel – a white and grey banner! Grey and white, a running Direwolf against snow".
"Robb Stark". Margaery hadn't thought that the Young Wolf would stray from Riverrun now that the snows had started to fall, but she supposed that a little snow could not stop the North. This must be what summer was like for him. She held back a smile from her lips, thinking on how good it would be to see that earnest and handsome but blushing man and his darling Direwolf again. Partly it was not a good thing, for she looked down on her black riding dress and saw that the hems were still discoloured by Florent blood and greyed with the dust of the road. "None of us are fit to see the Direwolf as we are now" she proclaimed as she swept her eyes over her dirtied little following. "We stop, find a stream, and all bathe and put on our finest clothes! He will know we are not mere refugees coming to beg for sanctuary!"
They complained, of course, for the waters of the steam they found were fast flowing and cold, but Margaery brokered no disobedience. And despite them being Loras's and Royce's men they all headed her, washing their bodies and their hairs and cleaning their armours. Loras stood guard while she and her ladies bathed, for properness's sake of course, and while Alyce dried her hair and made it as fine as she could with what little brushes and combs she had Megga and Alla found her another riding dress – a Highgarden velvet gown in the black of mourning, with gold vines and roses crossing and dotting the dark fabric – and a green and gold cloak to wear over it. Only when all of her following looked their finest did she allow them to carry on. They were mere hours away from Pinkmaiden, and she would have them look like the princes and princesses of the Reach.
Beauty is a weapon, my dear. Grandmother had always said that, a lesson to take to heart amongst so many others. It bites sharper than any sword and is remembered longer than any flame. But it is fleeting. Use it while you have it, and awe those without it.
Pinkmaiden was not what she had expected.
Once the castle had been great. Astride a hill it looked out over the Red Fork, its towers still high and proud, but its once so stalwart gates had been splintered and smashed, and sections of the walls of the inner keep had tumbled in on themselves after the Lannisters had burned it the first time. The town beyond it, along the distant banks of the river, was still spotted with burnt down buildings and scorch marks, but now that the Lannisters were gone rebuilding had started, and builders climbed all over the walls of that keep. As Margaery and her following, Edric riding with Loras, urged her horse forwards along the road she looked down to see flecks of red and gold amongst the trampled muddied grass. Red banners baring the Lion rampant, stomped into the ground by steeled hooves and marching feet. She shivered at the sight. Never will I let that happen to the Golden Rose.
"-and his sword red like lions long gone". Song drifted from the camped men along the road towards the castle gates, hardy northmen in ragged furs and chainmail and leathers gathered around queer banners, either ignoring them for drinking and singing or staring at her and the banner Brienne carried, the green and gold of her own golden rose in profile. Margaery's own banner.
Garlan and Loras all had their own personal crests, so why could she herself not have one? "And the stars in the night were the eyes of his wolf, and the wind itself was their song". The singing kept on though, and though the voice of the singer was a little rough the hand playing the lute to it was very skilled indeed. The song ended in a wolf-like howl, and when she passed the origin of that song, camped right by the side of the road, she urged her horse to stop and dismounted.
Around an unlit campfire, lazing around in the late day as they had no orders, rest a few of the Stark soldiers – she thought the books mentioned the term "bannermen" a lot when it came to the North – and the one that led them was a woman who rose and turned hurriedly to Margaery. "M'lady!" that armoured woman bowed like a man, the axes at her chainmail covered hips jagged of edge and terrible to behold. "Oi, you lot, behave yourselves!" she bit over her shoulder at the others around the fire, and they climbed hurriedly to their feet and bowed awkwardly to Margaery and her following. "To what do we owe you company, m'lady…?"
"Margaery Tyrell of Highgarden" she smiled at them and urged them to stop bowing and scraping. "I must confess that I heard your minstrel" she looked to the man by the back of the group by the wall of their thick hide tent, who had bowed in a flourish above his lute before he sat down again and kept on strumming the cords. "He sang something… I can't seem to remember ever hearing that song before". And as years of her life had been spent in lessons of music, of instruments and singing and the history of song, that made her both miffed and curious.
"It's called 'Wolf in the Night', my Lady" the minstrel, speaking with a Riverland flat accent that wasn't all that pronounced and could probably not have been noticed by anyone with a less good ear than Margaery, inclined his head. "I wrote it to commemorate the victory of our King Stark over the Lannisters and House Piper".
"Cursed fucken' oathbreakers, those" one shaggy man spat at that, one with a Northern accent even thicker than that of the giant that had accompanied Robb at Bitterbridge… Smalljon, was it? "But I still don't see what you're on about, mate, so I don't" that shaggy man with the enormous pike by his seat looked with narrowed eyes at the minstrel. "'Stars in the Night'. Pah! It was fucken' raining and snowing, so it was!"
"It's simply enhancing the truth, my musky mountain mate" the minstrel jested back with a smirk even while he disinterestedly plucked at the strings of his lute, sending soft music out into that late day. "Highgarden… It lies at the heart of the Reach Proper, the land the Northerners once called 'the Mander‑lay', giving the new name to House Manderly of the White Knife".
"Forgive them, m'lady" the woman in the bear pelt and chainmail dress who seemed to lead them said in an attempt at apology. "Tragnorn is a mountain clansman, thus thicker than the rock that birthed him, and Rymund the Rhymer is a poof and a fop. Though at times there's been a little prophecy in his songs-" she studied Margaery's face close. "You disbelieve, m'lady? Don't believe in prophecy?"
"I believe that only the Seven knows the fate of men" she told that northern bear of a woman, who crossed her thick arms before her massive bosoms and cocked her head sideways. "And that the Stranger is the only one that knows our deaths. I take it you do not?"
"The Gods speak to some, some men and some women, some noble and some vile, m'lady" the bear woman stated bluntly, in no way wary of offending Margaery's religious or cultural sensibilities. "They speak often of late. In dreams and in the red leaves of the Weirwoods. They speak of lands that burn beneath the eyes of the heart trees. They speak of the Wolf who brings the snow. His name is Stark, the King of Winter. The King in the North!" And at her shouted proclamation those around her took up the call, booming out the same, and the shout spread onwards and outwards all throughout the camp. "The King in the North! The King in the North!"
"That will become very tiresome very quickly" Loras muttered aside to Brienne atop his horse, and the blonde and freckled woman turned to answer before a clamour and a ruckus from beyond the splintered castle gates, horses screaming in fright, and then, leaping silently down that slope, a wolf the size of a knight's charger came running. "Blast! It's that Stark's beast".
Margaery, on the other hand, said something quite different as she left the men under the black bear flag and her own following behind. "Grey Wind!" she called out, and the giant wolf came to her, frightening her horses and almost making Rosa prance and throw Elinor off her back. But the Direwolf cared not for horses then, as he bounded to Margaery and danced all around her in a circle, baying softly as his tail wagged and whipped up a fanning wind. "Hello" she smiled at the great beast and reached out to him, and he kissed her hand in the way of dogs after he had sniffed her. Then he sat, his head to height with hers, and let her scratch him behind the ears.
And as the following of that wolf rode out of the splintered gates of Pinkmaiden Rymund the Rhymer looked on the wolf and the princess, and his eyes turned up to the banner held by her brother. The golden rose of Highgarden. "The wolf that Kissed the Rose" he muttered as his comrades stared at Margaery. "All of you, shut up!" he snapped at no one in particular as he closed his eyes and began to run his hands furiously up and down his lute. "I'm composing a bloody masterpiece here!"
Grey Wind didn't as much as look back at the approaching riders even as the men and women of the camp lifted their spears and swords and cheered at his passing. Margaery did, however, and there she saw the King of Winter riding with a few bodyguards and sworn lords, his plate armour traded for leathers and furs and his hair flowing freely from an uncrowned head.
"Grey Wind!" Robb Stark chasticed as he, for once, ignored the cheers of his soldiers and unhorsed while his white and black steed was still moving, landing with both feet on the ground before Margaery and his Direwolf. "Don't suddenly run off like that!" he complained at the beast, who simply turned his head at his master and lolled his tongue out of his mouth. "Fool beast" Robb muttered and laid and arm around the Direwolf before he turned fully to her. "Lady Margaery! I hope he's not accosting you".
"He's been a perfect gentleman, though a little eager" she laughed and mothered the wolf, who huffed into Robb's face hard enough to blast his hair back from his sweaty face. "Did I catch you at an inopportune time, your Grace? I hope I was not disturbing you".
"Not at all. I was fencing with Smalljon" Robb told her, smiling back at her smile with a soft blush in his cheeks that wasn't all due to his strenuous exercise. "He must have smelt you from afar, Lady Margaery. He still remembers your scent and the honeycakes you gave him".
"Unfortunately I am fresh out of those!" Margaery laughed, and Robb chuckled with her, the laugher as if pulled out of him at how Grey Wind's ears turned down and how he lowered his snout to sullenly sulk at her words. "And I doubt that I smell of anything but horse at the moment. Oh, don't you be sad, my brave wolf" Margaery lifted at Grey Wind's muzzle and tickled at his whiskers. "I'll have Megga make some for you" she leant in close to his giant ears and added in a whisper "if she doesn't eat them all herself first!"
Grey Wind snorted hard and wagged his tail. "He thinks that you are witty and amusing, Lady Margaery" Robb Stark translated the actions of the Direwolf for her, but he realised that he needn't had. As he watched her and his constant canine companion lean on each other his face slowly began to fall. Margaery wondered if she had done anything to displease him or make him sad, but when he parted his lips and spoke she knew that he was saddened for her sake. "I heard about Renly" he told her earnestly, and she knew that he had noticed her black mourner's garb. "I… he and I had our differences, but I respected him, and he seemed like a man who wanted to do right. By his people, and by his House and yours".
"He was one of the kindliest kings who ever walked upon the soil of this earth" Margaery replied as she inclined her head and accepted the condolences as befitted a queen – though a real queen she had never been. Still, even though their marriage had been cold, she was saddened at Renly's death. More so for her brother's sake than his. "His death… Stannis ordered it, and a knife in the dark did the deed. The Stormlands and houses Meadows and Florent turned the very same day we heard of it. They… they came after us, your Grace". She considered widening her eyes and giving him a puppy-eyed stare to warm his heart, but for some reason she knew that this man responded best to sincerity. And she found that she did not want to be false to him. "My brother and I - we had no recourse but to flee north, with only a few of our loyal swords. We have been riding since-"
"Say no more, my Lady" Robb urged her and bent his head deeply, as much a bow as the King in the North would ever give anyone. "You will have sanctuary at my court. And I condemn Stannis Baratheon. I name him murderer, Kinslayer, Kingslayer. Accursed is he and his line, until the end of time". Margaery had the feeling that something of momentous importance had occurred, going by the way all those within earshot who followed the Old Gods echoed "Murderer, Kinslayer, Kingslayer. Accursed is he and his line, until the end of time" as they bent their heads and put their hands above their hearts. Northern customs. A fey folk, truly. "Lord Marq!" Robb Stark turned to his followers, all still on horseback in defiance of southern regal protocol.
"You are both Brave and Beautiful, lady Margaery" a tall blonde man, who had ridden just behind Robb on his way together with a man of wild black hair and beard who wore a greatsword and a plaid cloak, bent his head when Robb addressed him. "House Piper stands at your service. Pinkmaiden shall be your home away from your own, for as long as you wish it to be. Our halls are yours, our hearths are yours, our ravens are ready to fly on your command".
"Thank you, Lord Piper, your Grace" Margaery curtsied and smiled, and Robb blushed as he smiled back at her. She had to admit… it was cute. "Thank you, Robb" she told him quietly, and she all but reached out to lay her hand on his arm.
"I am glad to see you well, Margaery" he told her as Elinor led her horse up to her and she made to mount Rosa, but without a set of steps she had to take both of Elinor's hands to try and lift herself up. Then suddenly the ground disappeared under her feet but for a single sturdy patch under the heel of her right slipper, and a strong arm lifted her into the saddle. "There you are".
"Thank you again, Robb" she smiled at the King of Winter as he stepped back and away from Rosa, the warmblood mare regarding him suspiciously like an intruder. "I, and House Tyrell, are in your debt".
"You owe us nothing, Lady Margaery" Robb told her as he went to mount his own horse, which was standing to the side of the road munching on grass with vacant, glassy eyes. "Gifts freely given. Come!" he turned his white steed around and raised his voice, and as the sunlight glinted off his red hair he seemed every inch the king to her. "Tonight we eat to your safety, and drink to Renly's memory!"
And as they rode after the King of Winter, towards the smashed gates of Pinkmaiden, Elinor leaned in close to Margaery and whispered into her ear. "Well, he seems like a good sort of man".
"Yes" Margaery whispered back, watching the back of Robb Stark's head. "That he does".
That night they had a small feast in the great hall of Pinkmaiden, Margaery and her little fellowship as well as one or two of the Lords under Robb's command as well as their retinue. She learned that night that the Northerners favoured dark beers and braggot, a blend of mead and ale, over wine, and that their eating habits the defied the conventions of the south with cavalry foods and lordly dishes. The dark breads, hearty stews and meats and beets and roasted vegetables dripping with stock and gravy did not suit her tastes all too much, but there was this one thing that she did favour – an odd shortbread, sweet and pale, with some hint of lemony flavour to it.
"Pine cakes, made by one of Galbart Glover's bakers" Robb told her, as he was seated next to her at the seat of honour at the high table, her brother and all her ladies at her other side while Lord Marq sat on Robb's right. "Beet sugar, flour, butter and the tips of spruces. We have it sometimes at Winterfell, though it's all they ever eat at Deepwood Motte". Margaery nodded to him as she smiled around the food in her mouth – she had lived on that horrible jerky and stale bread provided by Ser Royce and his men for too long – and looked with furrowed brow past Robb Stark at the four people sitting to the right of Lord Marq. "He's the one with the, ehm, iron glove on his banner".
"The glove of Glover" she noted, as there were four lords and a banner behind each. One was a chained giant, before which that giant with the braided red hair and beard called Smalljon sat, along with a dark, tall and bearded but otherwise unremarkable fellow in front of a steel fist on red and a muscular old woman with grey hair in heavy furs and a huge mace at her side in front of a black bear on green. Most of Robb's other lords were away, the Bullwers and the Boltons and the Blackwoods and a dozen other houses she could not recall beating back Lannister occupations of smaller castles and towns. Many men followed this King in the North, and- "What in the light of the Seven is that?"
"What?" Robb wondered, craning his head around to try and see what she saw. "Oh, that's Maege Mormont. I think you met her lass earlier, Lyra. I know it's rare for women of the South to take to warring, but it's still common in places in the North, and Bear Island-"
"No, not her" Margaery shook her head. "The ordinary looking fellow with the face-scar-"
"That's Kase Brineborn, sitting in for the men of House Hornwood" Robb told her, still a little confused. "The Lord Halys died at the Green Fork, and the heir to the house, Daryl, was killed by the Kingslayer. It's a spot of a succession trouble, that, but I haven't had time to tend to it-"
"What is that thing he's sitting in front of, on that orange-tenny banner?" she wondered further, narrowing her sight at the obviously fictious animal, wondering what in the name of the Seven Hells it was supposed to be. "It looks like a cross between a stag" she furrowed her eyebrows together as she thought hard on it "and a bear".
"It's a moose" Robb Stark said back levelly. She turned her head to him, and he was looking at her curiously. "What? You don't have them in the south?"
"It's an actual real animal?" she wondered aloud, crinkling her eyebrows together, and Robb's smile grew strained as if he was trying to hold back a chuckle. "Oh, please do not, your Grace – I have never seen one of those things before!" At that he could contain himself no longer and burst out laughing, at which point she began laughing too, and there was a shift in the room as everyone turned to see what she and the King were laughing about. "Moose!" she tasted the word on her tongue. "Moose! Gods, what a ridiculously stupid name for an animal. It sounds like something cattle would say!"
"Oh, they are all over the North, Lady Margaery" he assured her as his laughter, deep and rich just like his voice and tender as music to her ears, faded into a chuckle. "Sometimes they come up to the walls of Winterfell, grazing as they do. Dangerous bloody things, huge and ill-tempered. Some of the clansmen ride the things – can you believe it? And when you go hunting in the North, Moose is what you're most often to look for".
"I see" Margaery noted. She had never heard about creatures like that. What far, few and wondrously different land the North must truly be. She leant in against his finely carved chair and asked in a low tone. "How do they taste?"
"Badly" Robb told her just as quietly, their eyes meeting for a few seconds before they burst out laughing once again. Blessed be the Seven, how good it feels to laugh once again. And going by the looks the Northerners in the hall were giving her, of surprise and suspiciousness, it was something the Young Wolf rarely did. It was odd. Everyone kept telling stories about all the battles he had won and all the Lannister men he and his wolf had slain, but all she saw was a young man, laughing, courteous and kind. And then, in a shift, it was as if he remembered himself and put the crown back on his head as the smile died on his lips.
That moment came when Ser Royce, in his full Bronze regalia with a teal cloak hanging from his shoulders, his bronze helmet under his arm as he stood from his seat and rounded the honours table to kneel at the foot of the dais on which that table was raised. "Your Grace" he spoke, and his tone cut through their joy as he knelt. "I have come to you to pledge my service-" he paused before he began anew in a manner better suited to the King in the North and the traditions of the First Men. "To swear my sword and my arms to you and the banner of your House. Before the coming of the Andals the Kings of Runestone counted the Starks of Winterfell as their allies and friends. Could you find it in your heart to think the same of me, your Grace?"
"Royce and Stark has always been at good standing with each other, Robar" Robb stood from his seat and towered over the rest of the hall without even needing to be tall to do it. "My father thought yours one of the best fighters that ever lived. Ser Royce… me and mine, we have no knights and are not anointed in the light of the Seven. Could you swear yourself to me knowing that?"
"It matters not to me if you are a knight or not, my King. I am your man, your Grace. Without hesitation, without reservation". He drew his sword from his hip and laid it on the floor before Robb, tip pointing towards him. "If you would grant me the honour, I would happily serve in your Kingsguard".
"I do not need guards and wardens in this war – I've enough of those already, and when Kings fight vows are broken readily – but I do need friends at my back in my honour guard. Rise, Robar Royce" Robb urged, and with his hand he bid the knight of the Vale to stand before he reached for his cup of wine. Robb drank sparsely, Margaery had noted, though when he did he drank only of the wine he had taken from Lannister stores. More for the sake of conquest and victory than the taste or the act of getting drunk. "Royce, for escorting the Lady Margaery to safety I drink to you. To Royce!"
"To Royce! To Robb Stark and the Lady Margaery!" Galbart Glover raised his glass instead to his king and drank deeply, and it seemed to her that the Northerners drank more readily the praise of their King than that of a man they did not know. Yet still Ser Royce smiled, and standing there she wish to know what he thought.
What was his endgame? What was it that he sought from Robb Stark that made him so desperately seek his favour?
She would not have her questions answered that night. She and her ladies retired early, tired after their harrowing journey, and Loras came with them while Brienne stayed with the Northerners to speak with the Mormont women. Margaery was glad to see that was Elinor back to her old self as she jested and flirted with the Cassel and Glenmore men that were their escort to a wing of the castle that had remained untouched by war and siege. Their quarters were as warm as they came in the Riverlands, if a little sparsely furnished even after Margaery's packing was taken there, and Elinor was helping Margaery comb out her hair before they went to bed when Loras barged in.
"I must admit that I doubted, sister" he confessed, a cup of wine still in his hand as he loitered over to the glassed window of her designated apartments after he threw the door closed behind her, glaring darkly out over the Pinkmaiden godswood as he leant against the stone windowsill.
"Loras". Margaery saw the black mood hanging over her brother like the clouds over Storm's End. She looked over her shoulder at Elinor. "Go see if Megga and Alla are all settled in, will you?" After her friend had left Margaery stood from the side of her bed and approached her brother, making sure that she was far from him when she spoke in case he flew into one of his rages. A year ago she wouldn't have been so apprehensive, but now she was. She remembered what had happened Ser Cuy and Ser Morrigen. "Loras, you need to sleep". He shot her an angry glance. "Willas and Garlan would tell you the same. We have been travelling for long, and we have many ravens to send tomorrow. The King has set his rookery at our disposal-"
"Renly was the real king" he cut her off, and she could see the tear trail down the side of his cheek. "He was the best of them. Stark, Stannis, even that abomination Joffery – I'd kill them all if it brought Renly back. I'd slash and I'd stab and I'd kill all the men in the world". His voice broke at the last, a shudder going through his shoulders. "But he's gone. Damn the gods that took him from me, he's gone".
"Brother" Margaery laid her hands on his shoulders, and he slouched under her touch, as if there was no strength left in him despite his knightly training and physique. He stood there, staring at the moon, silent for a little while, before he shrugged off her hands and gave her an empty smile, and she nodded back at him, going back to sit on her bed. "You came here for a reason. You said you doubted me?"
"I did not think that you could turn him against Stannis so easily" Loras expounded on his earlier statement. "I didn't. His father was better attached to his honour than his head, and the Young Wolf walks just like him. Talks just like him, if a little more grandiose. He'd say that Stannis's claim was paramount. But no" he shook his head and gave her a wry smile. "You just twinkled your eyes at him and stroked his… wolf… and he put all his power behind our cause. 'Kinslayer'. The North does not take kindly to that sort of thing. You have a lot of power over him. What you mean to do with it?"
"I do not know". Honestly she did not. She knew that the sensible thing in their situation would be to swear themselves to a royal authority – Stannis, Joffery or Robb – or to just withdraw and wait out the war and ally themselves with the victor. But Loras would never follow Stannis, Joffery was an abomination of incest if the rumours were true, and she wanted Houses Florent and Meadows to answer for what they had intended to do. Perhaps… perhaps following the young wolf was the right heading to choose. "'The Stars in the Night was the Eyes of his Wolf'". He truly was fierce. "Perhaps he could be persuaded to back Edric's claim, weak as it is" she offered. "We need not hedge our bets on only one horse, as Willas would say. We can treat with the Lannisters too if we must".
"You saw the Lannister lions stomped into the ground out there" Loras pointed out to her. "He hates them. I know hatred now, better than I have ever before, and I see it in him too. The slightest hint of duplicity from us and he would not hesitate to unleash his wrath on the South. And I saw his men. They are hard, Margaery, and not just in the comely manner. They will laugh and smile and be courteous, but killing comes easily to men from the North if they are slighted".
"'When a wolf descends on your flock, all you gain by killing him is a short rest, for other wolves will come. If instead you feed him and tame him and turn his pups into your guard dogs, they will protect the flock when the pack comes ravening'". Loras paused and looked seriously to her, wondering no doubt what all this was about. "It was Reachking Garth Gardener, ninth of his name, who said that, wasn't it? He said it about the Andals coming to conquer his lands, but that doesn't make it less true for our current predicament".
"You want to tame the Wolf of the North, like Garth tamed the Andals?" Loras questioned, an eyebrow raised, and though Margaery blushed at his insinuation she never the less looked back at him firmly. "Yes, perhaps this is true. He seems to bend easily enough to your charms. We have all but turned him against Stannis already. But you know that taming doesn't come easily, dear sister. The big one might come easily to your hand, but Wolves are wild. Dogs are tame. Wolves are not".
"He seems fairly easily tamed to me" she noted and leant back to support herself on her palms. "As I said, we need not hedge our bets. We will send word to Grandmother and Father on the morning. You and I should stay here, with Robb, make alliances and friends with the North. Father can send Brightsmile or Garlan or one of our other cousins to King's Landing, just in case we need to turn our coats. I will no doubt have to remarry – after the customary minimum of three moons of mourning, of course".
"Renly's body is scarcely cold, and already you think to wed another man" Loras sighed, and Margaery looked hard to him. Gods, sometimes he sounded just like Renly at his worst. "Don't look at me like that. I do not blame you. That's the lot of women in this world, isn't it? The weapons you fight with are different from mine, but you fight just the same. You must mind your prospects. And out of the two of us I loved Renly dearer".
"I'd say" Margaery scoffed. "He spent our wedding night with you". Not that she was bitter over that. She had been happy for her brother then, just as she mourned for his sake now.
"Yes" Loras sighed and sipped of his drink, sadness in his eyes and vengeance in his heart. "Yes, he did love me better, didn't he?" Her brother had sworn kill that bastard Stannis. He had sworn it on the Seven, the Old Gods, the Summer Gods, the Black Goat of Qohor and any and all other gods in the world, living or dead, except for the Red God. He'd run his sword through Stannis's chest and cut out his heart. They'd see if it really burned with the fire of that pagan god, then. That was why he would cleave to the Young Wolf.
The Lannisters could give them safety, but Robb Stark could give Loras his vengeance. And after a few messages Father would see the same. She was certain of it. But she? She had come for the offer of safety and curiosity for a severe but well-meaning young man who wanted nothing more than to free his people and avenge his father. Robb Stark… he was a good man. He was strong and handsome and a leader of armies. And the best way to tame a young wolf was with a bitch.
"Not a bitch" she mused quietly. "It sounds base. A she-wolf". She turned to look out the window of her chambers and take in the moonlight of the night. "The She-Wolf of Highgarden".
She whispered that, for she didn't want her brother to hear of her idle fantasies. Dreams, merely.
For now, some traitorous part of her mind whispered. For now.
END
A/N: No, she's not really in love with Robb. Not yet. I'm going to milk this for as much drama as I possibly can, first.
It will be explained further along the line, but for those of you who are impatient: no, Robb is not a Warg. Not a good one, anyway. He doesn't have the same talent for it as Arya or Jon, and certainly not as much as Bran. He can basically go into Grey Wind, but do bugger all once he is in the Direwolf's head. Okay? Good.
Also, there are a few additions here: Pinkmaiden has no description in canon, and that ancestral sword of theirs is not a thing that is a thing. All of my own invention. Maybe they'll make an appearance later in the story in greater detail, but not right now. The Greatjon's wife is never mentioned, but I thought about an off-hand remark by Robb in chapter two and couldn't help but wonder and expound on it myself. So there, a little extra to flesh out both Greatjon and Smalljon's characters. Still haven't decided on a name for Mrs Umber yet, though.
Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed the chapter. The best is yet to come.
Ta.