Chapter Six – Know my Name

Robb

"You're saying it's the best armour in the world" Lucas Blackwood asked where he was riding beside Robar Royce, near the front of Robb's procession and as a member of his honour guard, as they were riding through the woodlands on dirt roads just south of Stoney Sept. "But it's made of bronze".

"It is older than the tree outside Raventree Hall, Riverlander lordling" Ser Robar answered him in a tone befitting that knight that tired so hard to be pompous and courageous. Robb wondered how a man like that, so good with the sword and so ancient in his legacy, could be possessed of such insecurities. "It is touched by the Seven, and crafted by the Runesmiths of our House in ages past. No harm may come to those of our House who wears it".

"Why then has so many of your house died wearing them over the last five centuries of recorded history, Ser Royce?" Tytos Blackwood questioned, riding beside his oldest son Brynden at the forefront of their formation, just behind Robb himself who rode at a solitary first. It was a relief in a change of conversation, as he and Brynden had been arguing about Brynden's betrothal to Jeyne Bracken, one of Jonos Bracken's five daughters of just as many trueborn children. Brynden had argued fiercely against it, saying that the Brackens were their ancestral enemies, but Robb had all but forced the Blackwoods and the Brackens to make peace. Such truces were often short lived, as they had occurred in the past, but Robb would not have his vassals fighting each other. Which was the very same reason that he would urge Greatjon to betroth his youngest son to Erena, Robett Glover's daughter, as soon as he got back from the North.

He needed a strong and unified North and Trident – and plans of marriages and alliances and war distracted him from Margaery.

He was no fool. He knew that she was trying to seduce him. Gods, he had half a mind to let her. But he wondered constantly to what end. Was she trying to get at him for his crown? Or was she after an alliance between the North and the Reach? Or was she, as perhaps not a friend but at least of a family that in the past treated with the Lannisters, trying to infiltrate his court and put an end to the war? How much of her laughter, how many of her smiles; how much of it were lies and nothing but? Doubt consumed him as he rode.

And it did not help that the conversations behind him turned to love and women at Lucas Blackwood's adolescent insistence.

"There is this one girl" Robar grudgingly confessed to Lucas Blackwood's and Smalljon's incessant prodding. "Or, there was. Alyce Graceford – one of Lady Margaery's handmaidens. We used to walk the sept at Bitterbridge together at night. I fear I might have ruined any chance I had of being in her good graces by not being forthcoming about my escorting of Lady Margaery to his Grace's court. Anytime she sees me now she narrows her eyes and grows cold. Methinks she thinks me a traitor".

"Methinks" Ser Brynden Blackwood scoffed from behind Robb where he rode in silence next to his father. "Who talks like that?"

"Ah, she'll be right!" Smalljon boomed and slapped the knight over his armoured back in goodhearted comradery. "You'll see. Me, myself? Well, there is this once wench back at Stony Sept" he began to tell about someone he had met only two days earlier. "Thick, curly black hair, blue eyes, the most perfect hips you've every laid your bloody hands on! Her name's Bella" he did not even have to think about it or strain to remember, which was unlike Smalljon. "She wouldn't even take payment for any of the four times I bedded her after the first. From a whore that's a sign of praise if ever there was one! I think I'll lay her over my horse and take her with me when we pass through on our way back!" Robb rolled his eyes ahead of them where they could not see. Umber men were a crude and special lot, though good natured at heart. Except for every other ancestor, who ate people. "And what about you, Ser Loras Tyrell? What fair Southron maid has the heart of the Knight of Flowers?"

"I had someone" Loras Tyrell said at last, a dark mood hanging over his pretty little head. "And because of Stannis Baratheon they were taken from me". They quieted at that, the mood growing sombre quickly. Robb had a suspicion about that, of course, given a few things that Margaery had let slip during their long talks together. He truly did not care. A true deviant was a someone who lay with animals or with children, not someone who happened to love another man. One of the Caswell men back at Winterfell had been in an all but name married to another man, a merchant in Wintertown. The fact was, anyone could say the vows before the heart trees if they kept the Gods of the Forests. Anyone could say whatever vows they wished. You only needed the permission of your liege, your kin and your beloved before you did so, not like in the light of the Seven with all their rules. And though few of even the Old Ways shared his views-

His train of thought was resoundingly shattered as a trail of horses thundered past them at the juncture of roads up ahead, racing into view from the left and out of view to the right through the trees. In the passing he had seen only a glimpse of their banners, and he could not believe his eyes. Or his luck. They stopped and stared, and in the end it was Smalljon who spoke. "Was that Gregor bloody Clegane?"

"After him!" Robb drew his sword and spurred his horse forwards. This was their prey, and the Gods had sent him into the path of the King in the North. And they say there's no such thing as luck.

"The King in the North!" Tytos Blackwood shouted as he too drew steel, and he and his sons were the first who came after Robb on their way, followed by Loras and Robar and Smalljon at the back, leaving behind the main following that struggled to keep up with their faster horses.

Through the trees and the woods they charged after the Lannister formation. A hundred men were at his back, one of many such bands scouring the lands after he had gotten a message from Derry. After the battle at the Red Fork, a battle that should never have been fought if his uncle Edmure had known his damned place and followed orders, Gregor Clegane had been cut off from his main forces with only a small contingent of personal guards following him, and so had fled deeper into the woods. Robb had ordered the Karstark and Bolton men to begin the siege of Harrenhal after word had come out that Tywin Lannister had taken much of his remaining forces east to the Crownlands and then ridden out himself.

Gregor Clegane was a monster and a beast. More importantly, he was Tywin's beast, and a legendary fighter that was one of the principal pillars of Tywin's fearsome reputation. If he captured the Mountain Robb would deal a decisive blow towards Lannister morale. And with the invasion of the Westerlands approaching fast, that was something he sorely needed. If he took the Mountain he only needed some way to take the Golden Tooth or Crakehall or Casterly Rock and the war would be made nothing but a formality. He would have won. He would have held the Lannisters at a strangle-hold, and he would have won.

But capturing the Mountain that Rides proved more difficult than he had anticipated.

The Mountain and his men, riding under a yellow banner with three black dogs on it, veered off the road and into the woods proper, and Robb whirled his sword above his head and had his formation disperse to get all of them. Some of the Moutain's men were ridden down, some stood their ground and down the horses of their pursuers, and between the passing trees Robb could spot other fighters not his own. Ragtag men on horses following a scarred man, flying no banners at all. But he had no time for them or theirs. His men could deal with them if they were his foes. All he chased was Gregor Clegane.

One man with a mouth full of teeth filed to cruel points turned around in his saddle and spotted Robb, and the sight of him filled the young king with disgust and hate, especially at how bloody he was around the mouth with the gore of other people. He reached out to Grey Wind, with his mind and not his hands, a dreadful thing that afeared him in its nature just as much as he marvelled at how natural and easy it had become, and sicced him on that Biter. Grey Wind howled as he went after that man, leaping into the air to land on his back while his horse still galloped, and then it was just Robb and the Blackwoods and the Mountain racing through the woods.

Armstark veered and careened, dodging tree after tree, making Robb lag behind, and a short while later he was a ways away when he saw the Mountain's horse stumble over a rock and break its back in the fall under Clegane's titanous weight. Snarling and cursing Gregor drew his enormous sword, a greatsword that he could hold in only one hand thank to his size and freakish strength, and killed the horse by stomping on its head, turning at the last moment to see Tytos Blackwood charge at him, lance in one hand and sword in the other. Never had Robb seen such a brave sight, that elder knight bearing down on that monstrous brute, the sunlight through the leaves above shimmering in the steel of his armour.

Which was why it was so shocking to see Gregor Clegane cleave his horse in half and knock Tytos Blackwood from the saddle with a single swing of his greatsword. "Father!" Brynden Blackwood charged in after his brother Lucas as their father crashed to the ground with a sickening crunch of a snap, his neck breaking like a twig under his weight.

"Bollocks!" Robb hissed as he urged Armstark forwards and towards them, into the small hollow that they had landed in, but he was too late, too slow, and the Mountain was too fast. Lucas Blackwood hadn't worn his helmet, and his skull was cloven down to the collarbone before the Mountain's sword lodged in his armour. Brynden Blackwood charged with a mad roar and imbedded his sword in Clegane's armour – but he didn't punch through. The Mountain's armour was too thick, and Lucas died when the Mountain struck him over the head in rage, spinning helmet around with his head until his face was over his shoulder like an owl's.

Too late Robb unhorsed in a single fluid motion and slapped Armstark over the rump with the flat of his sword, sending his horse out into the woods and away from the Mountain to join Grey Wind. Clegane was panting and huffing within his great suit of impossibly heavy armour as he wrenched his sword free and stood there, and Robb had to admit that he made a fierce figure. "Gregor Clegane, a killer of babes and a false knight". He lifted his wolfshead shield high and laid the tip of his sword against its rim. "I'm going to bloody well enjoy this". He had known the Mountain by reputation only, but now the battle had become personal.

"No" the Mountain boomed back, his voice seeming to Robb like the frenzied barking of a mad dog. "I will!" And the earth shook and broke under Clegane's feet as he charged over the bodies of Blackwood's sons. Robb only just managed to dodge the swing of his mighty greatsword. Gods be good, he is fast.

Clegane thundered past him, and Robb stepped around, hacking at his back. Lionslayer bounced off harmlessly, Clegane's armour being too thick to penetrate. He slashed at the Mountain's legs, but even there he did little damage. He had to throw himself flat on the ground to dodge the next swing, as even a glancing hit from that massive sword would have hurt him greatly. He was lighter and faster. And cleverer. He had to use that to his advantage.

"Stay still!" the Mountain roared and Robb came to his feet and stood just in time to block another blow towards his shield, and though the strike was glancing it vibrated through his entire body. "Die!" Robb went around that strike and hefted his sword with both hands, thrusting it with all his strength through Clegane's thigh. Through the weaker leathers at the back of the Mountain's knee the steel tip went, and Robb gave a shout of triumph before a heavy strike knocked him back and the shield and sword out of his grip. Bells ringing in his head he scrambled to his feet to see his sword lying to one side of the hollow, his shield to another, and the Mountain, now limping over the profuse bleeding in his leg, in between.

Sword or shield? It wasn't even a choice for Robb. He dashed to one side, straining under the weight of his armour as he picked Lionslayer up from the leaf-covered ground, and turned the tip towards Clegane. Now he had just to wait and keep dodging while the Mountain bled to death-

Such plans were easily made and harder to follow through on. The Mountain roared as he came after him, and Robb, on arms trembling and near breaking with the effort, parried one blow, then another, than a third, but by the fourth his sword was knocked aside. Despite his size and his strength the Mountain was, after all, a master fencer, and Robb had allowed himself to forget that. And so Celgane retaliated with a back-edge strike.

For an instant Robb's world felt sluggish and slow, like the motions of all living things were passing through thick syrup, as he saw the blade of the Mountain coming towards him. He had time to say only two words before it struck him.

"Oh, bollocks".

The sword did not cleave through him or split his armour as it knocked him back, though he could feel two of his ribs all but snap as his breastplate went from convex to mildly concave. It was a testament to his padded leather jerkin, worn beneath his armour, that he was not killed in that stroke but thrown back nigh on fifteen feet and slammed his back into a tree. Grunting in pain and shaking his ringing head to clear it he looked up to see the Mountain advance on him, greatsword in one hand and primal, animalistic huffing coming from in under his helmet, a sound of a lust for murder. Robb scrambled to his feet, back pressed against the tree trunk with Lionslayer in hand, and somehow the only thought going through his head was that he had to end this monster. For Margaery.

She deserved to live in a where no maddened rapists and killers like that one lived. He had to end the Mountain. For Margaery's sake. And even as he thought himself foolish and stupid for thinking that he did not let go of the emotion.

There, at what he thought was the hour of his death, he saw her face before his eyes. He took a better grip on his sword and held it up before him. Gods, it was getting hard to breathe.

"Oi, arseface!" The Gloverblade, made of bad steel roughly forged into a greatsword of monstrous size, hit the Mountain over the head of his helmet and made it ring out like a bell, and the Mountain staggered to the side and almost fell before he turned. As he turned around he faced three men, not one.

Ser Loras Tyrell, the First Sword of the Reach, stood to the left in his armour of flowers and silver steel, arming sword in one hand and a misericorde in the other, his hair flowing loose and long in the breeze. To the right was Ser Robar Royce, Knight of Runestone, in that burning burnished bronze, the runes gleaming about his body in the sunlight that filtered down from the canopies above as he lifted his longsword with two hands. And in the centre between them stood Jon Umber the Younger, the grey plates and black leather on top of his long chainmail shirt shimmering in the passing shadows, that ugly ancient greatsword with a handle of human bone held high in his hands.

"You're not taking another step towards my King, you ugly goatfucker" Smalljon warned with a growl, and beside him the two knights pointed their weapons at the Mountain. "Gods give me strength, you die today!"

"Smith, strengthen my back" Loras and Robar spoke in one voice the ancient prayer of Andal knights. "Warrior, true my sword. Father, bless me with courage. The Seven light my path".

"The King in the North!" Smalljon charged in first with a roar, and his blade met the Mountain's in a block that sent sparks of red hot steel grinding off his rough-forged sword. Another man would not be able to do so, and Smalljon was scarcely able to with both his arms against the Mountain's one, but the men of Umber were strongly built. The Mountain planted his feet and pushed him back just in time to block a hit from Loras, but he forgot about the reinforced dirk in the Knight of Flower's off-hand, the tip of which punched through his armour as Loras stabbed it down and bit deep into his arm.

The Mountain turned to hack at him in vicious murder, but Robar struck him over the back and sent him reeling. And so the fight in earnest began. Robb could only stand and marvel as he struggled for breath at the swordsmanship on display before him. Loras fought like a dancer, every technique as graceful as a swallow's flight through warm summer winds, bending before the Mountain's sword and stepping aside to eat away at his defences one pinprick at a time. Robar was a wind in itself, flowing back and forth, slamming into the Mountain only to flow or jump back every time the blade came after him, courtesy of his long training to fight in his heavy ancestral armour. And Umber…

Umber was a bear, fighting like a berserker of Last Hearth was meant to. He never let up, always moved forwards, his ancestral sword chipped at and sending sparks everywhere as he met the Mountain's blade head-on. Together, fighting as one for the first time, they forced the Mountain back, inch by hard fraught inch.

Black spots appeared for Robb's vision, and breaths that had come in a struggle came suddenly not at all. He struggled at his sides and at his shoulders, his fingers trembling and fumbling, until he found the right straps and could let his breastplate fall off. It didn't help much, though a little. He was struggling for breath still. Blast, had the damn monster somehow broken his lungs? He took a deep breath – and a lance of agony shot through him. No. He shook his head and stood up straight, gripping his sword with both hands. He was the King in the North.

And that was not the day he died.

Umber parried one of the Mountain's now frenzied and desperate blows – only for something terrible to happen. The poorly forged metal of his sword was finally cut through, and the blade broke in half as he reeled back. Staggering to the side as Robar and Loras fought Clegane Smalljon looked down on the shattered remnants of his ancestral sword, handle in one hand and more than half the blade in the other.

He blinked. That was his ancestor's sword, a sword trusted to him by his father as a sign that one day he would be heir of Last Hearth. He blinked. As a boy his father had showed it to him, telling him that one day it would be his. He blinked. He was an Umber man, and Umber chief, and this blade was his birthright. He blinked – and then he looked up at the Mountain and dropped the ruined sword to the forest floor.

With an inarticulate roar Smalljon charged Clegane with nothing but his gauntleted hands held before him, bloody murder of the highest order in his hands. He crashed into the Mountain, who faltered back and swung wildly with his sword – only to hit Robar Royce over the shoulder with it and see the blade shatter as if it were made of glass. As Loras stabbed the Mountain through the shoulder Umber forced him to his knees in a wrestling match titans, and so the Knight of Flowers and the Knight of Bronze stepped before the Mountain that Rode No More and took their swords in both their hands.

As Robar and Loras plunged their swords through the Mountain's breastplate and then pulled them out Clegane howled in pain before his head fell forwards, now only able to weakly struggle at Smalljon's restraining hands. "Now, your Grace!" he called out to Robb who approached slowly, every breath hurting in his breast. "End him!"

"No" Robb shook his head to their great surprise. He would not murder a beaten man, even a foul criminal like Gregor Clegane. The Riverlords would see to his justice. "This one goes in my dungeon". And then he used the pommel to smash the Mountain over the temple, sending him spiralling into unconsciousness – after another three blows, that is.

Afterwards, as the other riders and squires set up camp around that hollow and tied the Mountain to a tree with the thickest ropes and fetters that they had on hand, a couple of surgeons came to look on the conditions of the principal fighters. The mystery fighters that had come to aid them in wiping the Mountain's Men and Murderers clean off the face of the world, the Brotherhood without Banners, were gone with the wind and without a trace, though Robb had one messenger send out riders to meet with them and offer them his full reward and all amnesty if they joined the war on his side. Loras was mostly unhurt after his fight, though battered and dead tired as they peeled him out of his dented cuirass and looked him over, and Smalljon, though bruised, took to drinking and booming out boasts and jokes to the great amusement of the camp. Robb did not.

Robb was sitting on an old tree stump with his upper body bared under his surgeons' ministrations, staring at the three bodies laid out under a tarp weave at the edge of the hollow, bitterly cursing himself for being too late to save them. Tytos had been one of the first men to crown him, and his sons had been boys. Little boys, who had died when Winter came. Boys merely. And Robar…

Robar rose from the rock he had been sitting on and walking up towards the downed Clegane. Slowly, almost softly, he began to speak.

"I was always second" Robar's voice came as an echo from within his helmet before he took it off and let it fall to his feet, showing a face deathly pale and wan and streaked with a fever sweat. "Always. Second son, second best, second borne. I was not even allowed to be Runesmith – my uncle's bastard took that honour from me before I was even born. Second best. I would win nothing, inherit nothing. Second best. I went to Renly, but then he died and I had no other choice at honour than betraying the trust of the most tender woman I have ever met. Second best".

He drew in a deep breath and sneered at the downed and chained Mountain. "But look at you now. Gregor Clegane, the Mountain that Rides. And who beat you? Second best – hah! Who brought you down?! Know my name, cur!" With all his power he kicked the unconscious butcher across the cheek, splitting his left cheek into a hundred bleeding pieces of skin against his teeth. "I am Robar" another kick "fucking" and another "Royce!"

"Fucking aye so you are!" Smalljon took the panting Bronze Knight by the shoulders and pulled him away from the downed Mountain. "But let's not kill him just yet. The King wants him alive for the Riverlands' justice-" but Royce did not hear him. Within his bronze plate suit Ser Robar crashed to ground, unconscious. "Oh, bloody shite, not you too. If you die I'm taking your fancy armour" Smalljon muttered as he checked the man for wounds before looking up at Robb sitting on his tree stump. "Not dead. Just exhausted by the looks of it, your Grace".

"Good" Robb gave him a tired nod as a gathering of squires came to drag the second son of Runestone to his tent and peel him out of his armour. He sighed and put his head in his hands. Tytos Blackwood and his sons Brynden and Lucas were both dead. His Lady wife and his daughters would be devastated. And his third son Hoster, now Lord of Raventree hall, was in the North with Greatjon Umber. Oh, Gods, what a cursed mess. He hoped that it had been worth it, losing Tytos Blackwood.

Was the death of a friend and good man ever worth anything the world could offer in return?

Damn it all, he wished Margaery was with him. She would have taken his hand and told him that all would be well in the end, that he would just have to see it all through and stand strong through it. Or so he imagined that she would say. And so something occurred to him.

He didn't care.

He didn't care if she was trying to seduce him for the sake of her family or some Southron cause for the Iron Throne. He did not care if it was all for show, if it was all a mummer's farce. The warmth of her skin, the scent of her hair, the brown of her eyes, the sound of her voice: these things were not false, even if everything else was. And he didn't think it was. Not really. He knew that it was a scheme, but at the same time he refused to believe it. He had his instincts, instincts that had served him well in battle, instincts that told him that something dark was afoot. He didn't care to heed them.

The wind stroked his cheeks, bringing with it a scent of fading summer from the south, and he looked up to his left to see a spot of blue in the greying woods.

And slowly a smile came to his face.

Margaery

She learnt that Robb and her brother had gone after the Mountain two days after they had left.

She knew of the Mountain. Gregor Clegane, Tywin Lannister's butcher. Rapist, murderer, reaver and abomination of nature most foul – that was what he was to the people of the Reach. He was also more than eight feet tall and stronger than a giant yet faster than a hawk in flight. She had seen him once, at a tourney. The mere sight of him had terrified her as a girl of twelve. And it was just as frightening now, many years later. The thought that her brother and her… that Robb would face such a beast – the beast that had on the orders of Tywin Lannister murdered and defiled Elia Martell and smashed open her children's' heads in against the walls of the Red Keep – scared her.

She did not enjoy being frightened. In fact, no one did. But she knew some ladies in Highgarden that acted like they did, clinging to the shoulders of knights and men and their elders at the slightest whiff of blood or the crawling of the smallest Spider. She had always thought it ridiculous, though as she grew older she had realised how advantageous such behaviour could sometimes be. She was not so easily frightened.

Still, she had found herself in the sept of Pinkmaiden on the third day, the only other person in there but for a lady in a black dress and a widow's veil, praying for Loras and Robb and their safe return once she had sent her ladies away to tend to their missions. As she prayed to the Mother her eyes could not help but open and glance over to that other praying lady in the small sept. Once that woman had been beautiful, and in some ways she still was, with auburn hair and fair blue eyes, yet the dark rings were deep around her eyes and her cheeks had gone sunken and wan with grief. After a quarter of an hour of earnest prayer – more than Margaery had every truly prayed in a single sitting before – Margaery could not help but to take conversation with the mourning woman. She was not one for ecclesiastical matters, anyway.

She had to almost pull the words out of her, but in the end she got her to speak. She had told her that she had come to Pinkmaiden from Riverrun with her son, and that she was grieving for those that she had lost, both living and dead. "I lost my husband, my father is dying, and my son has pushed me away. Or I pushed him away. I was too much like dear husband, I fear, too holding to my honour. Still I know not how to make us as we were once again. If we ever can be. Hard words were said. Words I cannot take back".

"Words are wind" Margaery had dismissed her stubborn dourness with a wave. "Just talk to him, won't you? Do not hang to hard to pride, and forgive. It might not be easy, but such is our lot in this world at times. We are forced to debase ourselves from time to time to get what we want. If we are not queens, that is". A queen needed not seduce and beg and bow to have her way. She needed to scheme still, to play what her Grandmother called the Great Game of Houses, but she was powerful on her own and not merely because of the men supporting her.

A queen could be truly free, unlike almost any other woman in the world. Truly strong and truly free. Margaery knew of many women now who became warriors and fighters. Brienne and the Mormont women came to mind. But they did so by adopting the trappings of men, men's traditions and men's behaviour. And was that truly strength? Was a woman only strong if she was a man? Not if she was a queen. Not if she was wealthy and had her own lands and was truly free to do as she pleased.

Margaery took to going to that sept every day and talking to that mourning widow in black. She was a widow too though, and she confessed to her that she did feel a little bad for nor mourning her husband. She did not say that it was Renly. Just like the Widow did not say what her name was or who her son was or who her husband had been. The older woman consoled her just the same, telling her that it was one thing to be sad and another to act like she was out of respect. Most did only the latter, and truly, if the dead could see and hear the goings on of the living world, was that not a form of a lie, an insult to the dead?

She made a fast confidant in her, perhaps because they truly did not know anything about each other unlike Margaery's friends and handmaidens. But something felt familiar about that woman, though, something she could not quite place. She had a feeling that she was blind and completely foolish for not seeing it. All she knew was that she was a widow with a dying father, had one son she thought "lost" to her, had daughters that had been "taken" from her, and had one son that had been "broken". Other than that they only spoke of the nature of grief and the ways of the world. Perhaps it was precisely because they knew nothing about each other that they could be so open with each other.

Her new friend brought some comfort to her in those days, but not all too much. She did what she could to pass the time. She kept at her archery, and though she was steadily growing more skilled, now hitting the boss from sixty feet in consistent spreads, her aim tended to waver and her hands shake at times when the ill thoughts intruded on her focus and she remembered the looming shadow of the Mountain. She hated it, feeling so helpless. Next time they rode off, she swore by the Seven that are One, she would be coming with them.

If there was time. From Loras and Robb's departure she had twenty-two days until Willas arrived at Pinkmaiden with her escort home, and by then her plans needed to have progressed to near-fruition. She had little other choice. She would have to change her strategy and become more direct.

She had to succeed. "Let's not lose our heads over this" Grandmother had asked. Befriending the Starks without getting anything for it would only serve to make an enemy of the Lannisters.

But on the sixth day they returned, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief when she embraced her brother once again. She had come to meet them at the courtyard so behold to state of their fellowship. Other than a few dead and quite a few wounded they seemed whole. Loras was bruised and battered and so was Smalljon, but the Umber man seemed no worse for the wear as he had one arm wrapped around the shapely young woman with black hair that rode before him in the saddle and clung to his chest. Worse was the sight of Ser Royce, who all but fell out of the saddle despite not wearing his armour, pale and shaking and sweating all over, his eyes goggled and red. And Robb-

She had seen how he was lifted out of the saddle of his white destrier, and before he had been able to give her more than a greeting and a smile he had been surrounded by surgeons and healers and harried away. Loras told her that he had been wounded and had wounded in turn when he had fought the Mountain before the three of them got to him. Robar Royce had taken him down while Loras hamstrung him and Smalljon held him in place. Now he, along with Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard, were locked away in Robb's dungeons under Riverrun.

Two of the most dangerous men in the realms, who fought for the same side, locked in the same cell. Margaery saw no way that could possibly go wrong. And she had a gown made of clouds also, that she had worn to the Merking's gala – of course it was a foolish idea. It was idiotic to the extreme.

But she allayed her concerns as she walked the gardens of Pinkmaiden castle later that day, when her brother had gone to rest and eat with several of her ladies. She would not argue with Robb – she could do that if her plans succeeded – not yet, at least. She had to make sure that he was at least partly hers before Willas got to Pinkmaiden. She had only a fortnight left. And what was that queer scent that suddenly lay on the breeze? It was sudden, but it might perhaps be the sweetest thing she had ever smelled-

"Lady Margaery" Robb's voice spoke up, and she turned about in the garden, smiling as she saw him. Her smile fell somewhat when she saw that his shirt was loose about him, and beneath it was bandages and linen wraps. None of it was touched by blood, but that was still little comfort, and what was less comforting was that his shirt was only undone just enough the make sure that she did not get a peek at his muscles. "Loras told me that I could find you here" he said, winching as he walked down those stone steps into the garden, holding back his four attendants with a raised hand, his other hand behind his back as Brienne gave him an approving look. "'Tis good to see you, Margaery. I hope you haven't been too bored with-"

He said no more, for Margaery stepped up close to him and examined his bandages through his shirt, her eyes and fingers moving over the linen strips with practiced ease, lifting at places to see the colour of his skin. "I let you out of my sight for six days, and you almost get yourself killed" she sighed and furrowed her eyebrows together. "My brother was unharmed. Is this your way of indirectly saying that you are not as puissant a dueller as my brothers?"

"It's my way of saying that I was unlucky enough to distract the Mountain so that Loras, Robar and Smalljon could take him down" he answered a manner seemingly a little prickly, before he inclined his head. "Also aye. I was always a better fighter from the back of a horse. Better with a lance. My brother was better with the sword and bow. Gods, only Theon could outmatch him with the bow".

"You truly miss home, for all your glory, your Grace" she spoke softly and took him by the cheeks. "It is adorable, truly. Now, will you let me see to your wounds or not? Unlike your camp sawbone surgeons I was trained by Maesters of the Citadel". At his look she chuckled and smiled at him, and he smiled back. "My mother is a Hightower, remember? If it is one thing they have bounds and bounds of, it is Maesters. And gold. And ships – let's not forget about the ships. I know my grandfather doesn't, nor does he let anyone else" she talked as she gestured him towards one of the benches in the garden, a stone thing that had once been ornately carved with the likeness of dancing animals and birds in flight. "Always he goes on and on about them every time we visit the High Tower. 'Been to Asshai and back' he says. Larger ships than the Redwyne fleet, though nowhere near as many. And-"

"My Lady" Robb stopped before he sat down and turned to her earnestly, looking like he was about to say something of profound importance. "I-" he stopped, and his face fell. "I seem to have forgotten… I had it all thought out, and – oh, bollocks to it. Here" he said simply and took his other hand out from behind his back, and suddenly she knew what that fair scent had been. "For you".

Blue winter roses, an entire bouquet of them, black stems and grey-white thorns crowned with blue blossoms that smelled ever so sweet. She took them carefully and held them up, a ray of sunlight glancing off the edges of the winter petals and reflected back at her eyes like shimmering frost. "They are beautiful" she heard herself, even as a small part of her mind said 'Here'? Truly? I've been given flowers by suitors, men and boys, since I was old enough to stand, and all of them have been more eloquent than that. "And smell so sweet" she breathed in of their scent as she lifted them to her nose. "Thank you, your Grace-"

"Robb" he told her, smiling back at her, suddenly looking ten years younger than he always seemed. "It's always 'your Grace' and 'my King' this way and that these days. I've told you already – please call me by the name my mother gave me".

"Only if you do the same for me… Robb" she could not hold back a triumphant smirk from gracing her lips as he turned his back to her and sat down. He unshouldered his tunic, and so she asked one of the attendants, standing to the side of the garden colonnade, to go fetch new linens and hot water and put her flowers in a vase in her chambers. Slowly she tended to his wounds, speaking quietly to him all the while she silently counted his scars – until Owen Norrey and Dacey Mormont stormed into the garden, a parchment letter in their hands. "Don't" she held her hands atop his hair when he made to rise. "You have got cracks and fractures in many of your major bones. Key bone, shoulder blade, second upper backbone – amongst others. No riding or fighting anywhere for at least a week, Robb. Please".

"Well then" he grumbled and gestured to Dacey, her face pale and serious, a trickle of blood going down the side of her lip where she in anger had bitten herself. Robb no doubt wondered what they had read in that letter, for so did she. And she also wondered why his personal guard kept reading his messages and barging in on him. But those questions faded away as she saw Robb read the message and a savage glow come to his eyes. He read it once, then once more, before he tightened it hard in his fist, so hard that his fingernails dug deep enough into his skin to draw blood. "My father raises him" he spoke quietly, and from out of sight Margaery could hear Grey Wind snarl. "My father clothes him. My father teaches him and brings him up as his own – and he lays siege to his castle and kills his men. Thank the Gods for the garrison I sent north with Umber. If not… Bran. Rickon".

"Your Grace" Margaery asked, knowing that it seemed like the time to start using titles rather than names, speaking carefully as the enraged Northerners stood waiting at their King's words. "What has happened? Is your family safe?"

"A man who I thought of as my brother is trying to kill my blood brothers" he all but snarled but obeyed her still, remaining seated even as his hands trembled with rage. "Besieging Winterfell. Argh! Send ravens to the Dreadfort" he looked up at Dacey Mormont "to Last Hearth, to Karhold, to all the high holds and the keeps. Tell them of the reavers. And tell them that I want Theon Greyjoy alive – so that I can look him in the eye before I cut his traitorous head off myself!"

Jon

Of all the things Jon had thought that he would be fighting in his life, Ironborn was not one of them.

But there he was just the same, on the ruined black basalt ramparts of Moat Cailin, running Longclaw through the breast of a man bearing a black tabard over his chainmail, smearing the white scythe there with red. The two other archers there, taken aback by the black-haired stark that had climbed their holdout overlooking the Battle of the Moat, scrambled back towards the edge, one dropping his bow to reach for the axe at his hip. "Fucking wolves!" he shouted in the customary eloquence of Ironborn men and lifted the buckler on his arm when Jon came after him, but Longclaw's blade was valyrian steel. It cut through shield, axe, arm and man in the same motion, and Jon wiped the blood from his face to see Ghost with the last archer's entire head in his mouth, shaking the small man to death like a dog would a rat.

Jon wasted no time thanking his Direwolf with anything more than a glance. He shoved Longclaw back into its scabbard, bloody still, and took up one of the archers' shortbows from the ground and a quiver full of arrows off their backs. Nocking an arrow to the string he turned westwards, looked down at the swirling mass of fighting men and took aim and drew back. He released, and a man in Greyjoy colours, black and a gold kraken, fell over with an arrow jutting through his eye. Jon drew another arrow and pulled back again. There were a lot of Ironborn, and much murder still to be done.

Jon had known that trouble was afoot from the morning he and the Umber band left Last Hearth, for a raven had arrived from one of the keeps along the Stony Shore, saying that longships had landed in the night. Ironborn had come to sack and conquer the North, and Greatjon had been furious.

"I will kill that rotten, kraken-smelling spindly little fuck myself!" he had roared and kicked a stable door so hard that it splintered as he went to fetch his freakishly large destrier. "Theon fucking Greyjoy! Oathbreaker! Traitor! I'll cut his head off and shove his cock down his throat! I'll cut his legs out from under him and feed it to the dogs while he watches! I'll-!"

It had gone on like that for almost the entire break-neck ride towards Winterfell. Eight very long and very shouty days. It was a wonder to Jon that he hadn't gone hoarse permanently.

They had found Winterfell under siege. Luckily the eighty men of Umber's original escort left behind there, sent by Robb to protect Bran and Rickon as he feared Lannister assassins entering the barely garrisoned keep otherwise, had managed to hold out against the three hundred Greyjoy warriors that assaulted the walls. Jon and Umber rallied the men of Wintertown and Houses Caswell and Overton, the few that had not marched south with Robb, and fallen on the Greyjoy camp in the night with a newly arrived contingent of riders from the Dreadfort to aid them. It was said, by one of the men that Jon had captured rather than killed on the spot, that Theon Greyjoy himself had lead them to Winterfell, but the Prince of Pyke himself was nowhere to be found. Umber had said that he had fled, though Jon had his suspicions of how soon the Bolton men returned to the Dreadfort in the dead of night, like the Red Riders of ancient history who brought men to be flayed by the Red Kings.

Anyway, it had not been a concern of his. If Theon Greyjoy was taken by the Boltons, all the better. He'd learn in the Leechlord's dungeons that one did not forsake one's sworn King, even for the sake of one's father.

Perhaps Jon would even ask Lord Roose for a strip of Theon's skin to piss on once they were done with him. Traitor. He had been raised in Winterfell, with Jon and Arya and Robb, and he had been their friend and their brother in all but blood. He had sworn himself to Robb. And now he partook in this invasion? Even the Dreadfort's dungeons were too good for him. If the Boltons had taken him, that was. He might just have fled.

If such, Jon would take his head himself. And feed it to Ghost.

After breaking the siege Jon had seen Bran and Rickon, the new Princes of Winter. They had both grown so much, though when Jon heard about Bran's fall and the subsequent attempt by the Lannister Imp to slit his throat in the night he had raged. Rickon had grown moody and sullen. And Jon had seen Bran's look, hollow-eyed and void of sleep, how he looked longingly towards the outer northern walls and their towers and the bright winter skies beyond. Jon thought that he must had longed to climb again, but such would be an impossibility now. And after hearing the words of Maester Luwin, who had taken a Greyjoy arrow to the shoulder but was otherwise whole and sound, and reading the messages from Father and Lady Catelyn to Robb, Jon had put two and two together. It all made sense when he read the message from Stannis Baratheon, another would-be King. The Baratheons in King's Landing were all Lannisters, and bastards to boot.

Normally that last part would have given him a little sympathy for them, but not then. He had deduced that Bran must have seen or heard something when he was climbing the towers, something implicating the incest of the Queen and her brother. That was why he had fallen – no, been pushed – and that's why they had sent a dagger in the night to slay him. Why they had poisoned Jon Arryn.

All of this, for Lannister blood. They had started a war for Lannister blood. And for Lannister blood he'd end them all.

After the siege was over Umber wanted to ride hard for Deepwood Motte. "The only one that kills Glovers should be an Umber" he had said, for the Ironborn had laid siege to the Glover keep and perhaps even taken it. But Jon, after reading Stannis's letter, had none of it. Greyjoys and Ironborn be damned, he was going to go down South and give the Lannisters what for. He'd see if Tywin Lannister really shat gold. And so they had put the matter to a vote, with Hoster Blackwood winning the vote for Jon, and they had ridden south after telling Bran to keep the peace and keep Winterfell safe. The reinforced garrison could hold off anyone until Robb sent reinforcements from the South.

But he almost hadn't needed too. Most of the raiding parties and the reavers up and down the western coast were ineffectual. A few keeps had been captured, but little more. The only place of note that the Ironborn had taken had been Moat Cailin, and with the children of Howland Reed freed from a fate of being Greyjoy hostages after the Breaking of the Siege House Reed would send every man it could muster to help Jon and Greatjon retake it. Even Manderly men had taken up the cause when they rode past White Harbour. The Manderlys, after all, had a great hatred for reavers, being a family whose fortunes had long been plagued by raiders and pirates.

And one of the oldest keeps in the world, old Moat Cailin, an ancient castle of the First Men, had been taken by invaders from across the sea. The North would not stand for this.

The plan had been simple, hatched by Jon himself with a little help from the seasoned but unruly Greatjon. The Manderly troops, with their pikes and their banners and their horse, would march down the Kingsroad making a mighty ruckus along the way. They had been only a quarter of the size of the Ironborn garrison all in all, but their purpose was not to fight but to distract. As they drew the focus of the Greyjoy outriders to the North Jon and the Cannogmen under the command of one Moyen Blackmyre would crawl into the old Moat and attack them from the south.

Crushed between the lion-lizards of the marshes and the mermen of White Harbour the Greyjoy soldiers and the Houses sworn to Pyke would be forced to return to their ships or be cut down one and all. And thanks to Ghost making short work of the southern Ironborn sentries the plan had succeeded. Mostly. Jon could honestly not tell, with the Manderlys pressing through the ruined walls from the northern breaches, forcing the shield wall of Goodbrother men back step by step, and the Crannogmen falling on the unprotected skirmishers and light troops from behind. That did not stop him from lifting his bow and letting loose arrows, again and again and again. He had to do his part.

As they were attacked from afore and from the rear many of the Ironborn men of Houses with lesser loyalties to the Driftwood Crown decided that no, they would not die for Balon Greyjoy's madness. Jon watched from the corner of his eye the shields of Blacktyde, Volmark, Stonetree, Orkwood and Myre pour out of the gaps in the western walls and run for their ships that crowded the narrow marshaland streems by the far western slopes, disorganised and routed. Still the Harlaw and Goodbrother men remained, most of them anyway, and held their ground beside the Greyjoy men. They fought like all the storms of their Drowned God's primordial enemy were on the horizon. Like this the battle would last for hours. Something had to be done.

Jon looked down beside him to find Ghost standing there, panting, blood thick and matting in his snowy coat. Jon reached up to find his stolen quiver empty, and so he cursed and threw the bow aside and drew Longclaw again, and then he reached out to touch Ghost upon the mane, guided by some unknown instinct. In the heat of battle, with the blood pounding his ears, it was as if he could hear what the Direwold was thinking-

His hand fell upon Ghost's alabaster fur, and his vision spun around, as if the world had fallen away from under him. He grunted in confusion and somehow it came out in a canine whine, and he looked down to see white paws upon the basalt stone, and looked up to see himself standing there, still as a statue, eyes rolled so far back into his head that only the whites could be seen. He looked away from himself, the sight disturbing him, to the enemy ranks, and against them he shouted as if he was about to charge. From his muzzle as he lifted his fangs towards the sky came a howl-

Jon's world returned with a crash, and he yanked his hand away from Ghost as if touching the Direwolf had burned him. Still Ghost, always so silent and looming like a White Shadow, threw back his massive head and howled towards the heavens, louder than any ordinary wolf ever could. The sound was chilling, down to the bone, curdling the blood and hurting the ears, and by the howl the Ironborn turned and faltered, seeing the Lord Stark standing there, monster of legend by his side, his Valyrian steel sword held pointed at the clouds as he loomed on the basalt rock of the ruined walls.

Fear streaked through them, and they faltered, and within minutes their formations were smashed as the Northerners and the Crannogmen cut them down. Jon climbed down from his marksman's perch and landed on his feet in the dust just as one of the Manderly commanders marched up to him in his Southron plate armour, no doubt about to ask how he had gotten the Crannogmen to come with such a force. He got his answer before he could even ask as he watched in horror when the marsher men slit open the stomachs of their fallen enemies and pulled their entrails and organs out, making bloody laurels to hang from the branches of their heart trees. Jon had promised them a return to old ways, to olden times when they needed not shy from their old traditions.

Robb would perhaps object, but Robb had always been more concerned about what people thought about him than Jon ever was. Jon had never had any honour or reputation to uphold at all. No name to besmirch. He saw no reason why that should change after his name had. It was his name he was tainting, not Robb's. And he had broken every oath he had ever sworn. He had abandoned his watch, yet still he knew of the true enemy. Jon would do whatever needed to be done to secure the North and bring justice for his family.

Damn his soul and damn his name, House Stark would have its vengeance. For winter was coming, and the cold shapes within the falling snow knew no mercy.

Fighting still moved in one part of the boggy courtyard. Only one Ironborn fighter remained standing there now, a tall brute of a man in full plate – in defiance of Ironborn tradition – with a broken helmet in the likeness of a mutilated kraken on his head and a cruel and wickedly curved axe in his hands. Around him lay the dead in droves, and from his shoulder one of his arms hung loose and covered with blood, almost taken clean off by a lucky hit from a Manderly man's sword. Bleeding from a thousand wounds the man looked up as Jon approached, and he gave the Direwolf at his side a savage glare. That was before Jon's view was obfuscated by a lumbering and looming shadow of a shape.

"What is dead may never die!" the Greyjoy warrior roared and charged at that mountain of a man, but Greatjon Umber stepped forth instead of falling back and, inside the swing of that great black axe, he struck the warrior down with a mailed fist, knocking off his broken helmet.

"Really?" he questioned the plate-clad warrior, tearing the axe from his hand as the Northerners around him boomed in laughter. He then lifted his new axe and cut the head off that Ironborn giant. "Because you bloody well look dead to me now!" He took the head in his hand and lifted it up by a tired, trembling arm. "I'd recognise that traitorous mug anywhere! This is a Greyjoy – Victarion fucking Greyjoy! The Iron Kraken himself!" Greatjon's grin faded. "Thought he'd be tougher".

"Fortify the walls and send your riders to harry the Ironborn back to where they came from!" Jon looked to the Manderly and Crannogmen commanders, who bowed and did as he bid with the words "Lord Stark". It was one of the best sounds Jon had ever heard, but he could exalt in it later. Right then he walked up to Greatjon and took the head out of his hands.

"Victarion Greyjoy" Greajon repeated as he panted from out of his helmet, his armour and helmet dented and cracked and stuck with arrows but whole and still protecting him. "As I live and breathe, it is him".

"Have this sent to Pyke". Jon looked into those dead eyes with no emotion at all in his heart. "We'll add a message. I'll tell them that I will not rest. Not until I have put every man and woman alive with the name Greyjoy to the sword for their treachery. When the Lannisters are dead" Jon looked up to the south and the rest of Westeros in the distance "I will come for them next".

And as the Kraken banner was thrown from the top of Moat Cailin's towers and trampled underfoot he had them raise the Direwolf in its stead. White on Grey. His colours now. He was Snow no longer.

His name was Jon Stark.

And none of his enemies would sleep easy after hearing it. That he swore on the mother he had never known.

Jon Stark.

END

A/N: You know, "ecclesiastical" is one of the oldest words in the English language – and it never occurs in A song of Ice and Fire. Always wondered about that, since, you know, middle ages and all.

By the way, I'm drawing on a little bit of medieval medicine in this chapter. There will be more of that to come. So all the major bones and organs that had latin names in English – like the vertebrae and the clavicals – will have more anglo-saxon names. Good? Good.

I suppose that medicine in Westeros would be routed in the Valyrian tradition since those guys were basically Romans, just like actual medicine is in Latin today, but I cannot be asked to make up words for "fractured sternum" in Valyrian. There's dedication to the craft on one hand, and then there's complete lunacy.

Also, sorry for Robb's musings on sexuality and Margaery's feminist musings. While I don't find the later too out of character – rather I see it as a way to flesh out and explain character while tackling the inherent contradictions of third-wave feminism that influences much of Mr Martin's body of work, especially ASoIaF – the former is, and not very adhering to the traditions and the times of the world. I will try to explain why I included it.

Well, followers of the Old Gods have next to no rules for behaviour in ASoIaF. And vows are said with witnesses before heart trees in wedding ceremonies, but never is it specified just what those vows are. Can two men say them? Can two women? Canon remains vague. My headcanon says it is possible, but rare.

But mostly it's because I, due to my own views and sexual orientation, would have a hard time writing the next hundred-or-so chapters with a title character who was homophobic. If you disagree with my views but otherwise like my story, feel free to ignore it. It won't come up too often.

Beyond that, I hope you have enjoyed this chapter. The best is yet to come.

Ta.