Chapter Nine – Brave Companions
Jon
Jon discovered, on that trip down the Trident with Smalljon and the surviving Northern fighters in their escort and the sailors they had hired into their cause, that he did not like ships.
No. He did not like ships, and he did not like sailing. Not one bit.
The sickness abated after a day or two, but still the rocking of the Fat Sow as she rolled over the waves of the Trident's stream made his stomach heave and his balance fail. He clung to the railings of the ship in the days and the night, as being inside the cabins only worsened things for him, and he even slept before the mast with the sailors. The cold winds and the shivering chill of the splashing water at the bow of even a slow and lumbering ship like the Fat Sow eased the sickness, at least. But while there Ghost seemed to mock him, as the Direwolf had no troubles at all with retaining his food on the ship. He didn't even protest. He was loitered around at the rear of the poop deck and the helm, frightening the sailors out of their minds by his very presence.
"Oh, it'll pass, lad" Greatjon had said on the second day of their travels, hand on his shoulder as he was violently sick over the side of the ship as they lazily sailed down the Trident. "I remember the first time my father took me out onto the Shivering Sea. It was a storm, a thousand times worse than this. But it passes for all men. After a fortnight heaving my guts out all over the deck of my father's best ship-"
"Your family's got ships?" Jon had managed to ask between his struggling for breaths and calm in between his agonising struggling with his own stomach, glancing at the Umber Lord with some surprise.
"Of course we bloody well got ships, Lord Stark" Greatjon had grinned. "Half the shoreline of the bay of seals is ours. In ages past the chiefs of Skagos were only allowed to trade with the mainland through Umber ports. We're an old house and a complex people, Jon. Everyone is, even in the North".
Jon understood that. He liked the sentiment, though he knew it to be false.
Some men, he had found, were very, very simple. He had fought beside some men like that, trained and eaten with them and called men like that "brother". Some of them thought nothing of the vows they had sworn, the words they had said in the eyes of the gods. But Jon thought of them always, and he wasn't even bound by them anymore. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. He found that he could not stop keeping to them, simply because he had been commanded to. Those words… they meant something to him. And his dishonour in breaking them haunted him. Was he forever supposed to be without honour and without any credence to his name? He had thought that when he had fought the Ironborn, but he was no longer so sure of it.
Some parts of the Oath he could break. Perhaps that was the solution. After all, he had sworn so many things, but to be some of the things he had sworn to be he now had to have lands and take a wife and father children. Perhaps he could still be a man of the Night's Watch. At least in part.
At least in part.
The ship they had managed to conscript in one of the villages in the Freylands, with a little help from a pouch full of silver gotten from the selling of their horses, was called the Fat Sow, and never had Jon heard a more apt name for anything be uttered. It was a wide thing, more barge than boat, sitting low in the water despite a second deck for oars beneath the sundeck and two masts catching the wind for it. The sailors were communicable enough, the captain especially so. Not that Jon had any wish for talking as they travelled sluggishly down the Trident, the days passing by in a pace that he could only describe as painfully slow. The plan was to stop for news and supplies in Harroway – the more colloquial name for Lord Harroway's Town.
But plans, as always, rarely come to fruition.
Fires burned in Lord Harroway's Town. They saw it from the distance, the banks of the Trident swelled with the rains and with the seasons to bring them deep into the harbour even at low tide, and while the captain of the Fat Sow wanted them not to approach the town, begged them not to involve him or his crew in any fighting, Jon and Greatjon refused him. Even Hos seemed eager to fight. Though Hos was always eager to fight now. Jon wondered if Greatjon's training had ruined his gentle spirit and broken something in his head.
And when the winds brought them close the sights they saw made all of them want to fight that much more.
The local garrison of House Roote, their banner of waves of green with a double headed horse of brown as its sigil, along with bannerless men in ragtag armour and motley leathers with ramshackle weaponry were fighting in the streets, their enemies murderers and marauders of uniformless look and with white banners flying over their heads bearing the simple sign of a black goat with bloody horns. Shoulder to shoulder with them, fighting desperately up the road towards the small piers where half a dozen other ships lay anchored. There they were pushed, pressed as one being into a slaughter as knights came thundering down the slopes beyond the town, from out of the woods and down the roads. Riverland knights, in shimmering and matt scales covering both themselves and their horses, swords and lances lowered fiercely, riding under scores of different banners, all crowned and overwatched by a single, and ancient, coat of arms. It was familiar to Jon as the sight of his own palms: grey on white, a Direwolf.
"Stark!" Greatjon shouted and hefted his axe up on his shoulders. "That's the Old Wolf banner! Stark of Winterfell!" His massive arm went around Jon's shoulder even as the sailors, with much protest, were made to take the ship in to port under Hos's direction. "Hah! I never thought that we'd stumble over the Northern army like this!" And as they approached the pier a wind picked up behind them, tearing at their clothes and whirling about their bodies, ripping at the furled sails above their heads. "You hear that, Stark?! The Gods are with us! The Gods-!"
And that was when the men on the shore noticed them.
Jon remembered later only snippets of the fight that followed, the happenings later in that day and the memories that were birthed from them overpowering those gory recollections. But he did remember cowering under Greatjon's and Hos's shield when the arrows started to fly and the unarmoured and unprotected crew of merchant sailors died around them. The old captain slumped dead to the oaken deck with a javelin through his neck, but of the rest of them they stood and held their ground on the deck, Jon handed a shield by Bendar the Leatherworker some time before the mercenaries beneath the Black Goat banner charged their ship.
Jon, Ghost, Drustan and Bendar held the foredeck, Greatjon the middle deck along with most of the men and the surviving sailors, and with two archers and only himself Hos held the aft and the poopdeck all on his own, screaming like a madman when the mercenaries charged them. They climbed the railings, jumped the deck, even swum in from around the rear of the ship's far side from port, but by Greatjon's booming voice and Jon's shouted orders they held. Jon remembered fleetingly killing what looked to be a small man in a septon's robe but with wicked knives in his hands and madness in his eyes. Another looked to be a cadaver, with red-rimmed eyes, thin hair, parchment skin and black veins that were swiftly opened with Longclaw. And so they stood, even with the planks going slick with blood beneath their feet and the bodies piling up around them, strong against the onslaught with the wind at their backs.
And then, suddenly, it was over. A few of the Lannister men tried to surrender to the knights that pushed them towards the docks, dropping their weapons and pleading for cleamency, but the Riverlanders remembered freshly how their homes and their lands and their people had been pillaged by Westerlander men and so showed no mercy in their vengeance. The slaughter sickened Jon, to his very core, but he didn't begrudge the men carrying it out. It had to be done. And he would deny no one their revenge.
Not while he was questing to avenge Father himself.
Later, as he stood talking with one of the few of the bannerless men, the Brotherhood without Banners, that had survived the battle, a tall young man with bright blue eyes and thick black hair that sat slumped against a bale of hale by the piers, he could feel something. He stopped tending to the horse that he had found wandering by the docks, a steed that must have belonged to one of the Lannister men or one of the mercenaries, a horse with a coat as black as midnight and with a temper that was as unpredictable as wildfire, and looked up.
At the sudden feeling Ghost darted up and sniffed into the air just as the same time as Jon looked around wildly. Then, as Ghost darted away, running as fast as he possibly could on his spirited white legs, he could feel it: a giddiness, a sense of belonging.
Of family.
And just then he looked to the southern hills to see the Young Wolf's honour guard come inside the reach of his sight.
Robb
"I mean to marry her, Smalljon" Robb grunted as he unhorsed Armstark and handed the reins of his steed to Patrek Mallister in his plate armour and indigo cloak, in the midst of an argument with the man that had become his voice. "I trust her. I am wont to have you, or anyone else, spying on her".
"Aye, she's a kind and comely lass, your Grace" Smalljon replied as he too unhorsed along with Dacey, Owen and Robar Royce as they came upon the crest overlooking Lord Harroway's Town with its singed houses and downed watchtowers, his vanguard of Riverland levies and knights clearing the bodies of the dead Lannister soldiers and mercenaries off the streets while the people of the city were returned to their homes. The Stark banner flew over the keep of the town's lords, House Roote, and the men below cheered as they saw his arrival. "She'll make a good queen. But, in all fairness, your Grace, you've known her all of two months. I'm having Bella watch over her, ever the same".
"Aye, and I'm sure your whore does splendid bloody work in clandestine matters" Robb grumbled back, debating whether or not he should force Smalljon to set aside the wench and have him marry some Southron lady. Jonos Bracken had half a dozen daughters… "Can she be trusted?"
"I trust her with my cock, so I think I can trust her to send me a message every now and then. It's the rare whore that knows how to write and read" Smalljon replied, clearly disappointed that there was no fighting to be had for the honour guard as the vanguard had done all of the work for them. "It's the Tyrell cripple I don't trust. No man who smiles that much with that hideous a deformity is untouched in the head. And, more to the point, I don't trust the rest of them. Southrons talk a good game, all honour and virtue, but shove a sword in their hand and tell them to face a strong man and most of them piss themselves. The cripple belongs out in the wilds, frozen to death. Put out to the wolves".
"Keep those thoughts to yourself, Umber" Robb shot him a glare, to which Smalljon faltered. "And never speak a word of this around Margaery. None of you will" he went on to those five of his closest guards within earshot while the rest of his immediate wardens came up the hillside, Maester Ebbert and Robb's new squires amongst them. "Raise the tents here!" he called out to them. "We're not burdening the Rootes any more than we already have. Send word that anyone in the town that had their homes burned by the Lannisters will be housed in the castle, along with the wounded. And someone get me a census of our loses, gains and kills!"
"I'll get on it, your Grace" Ser Karyl Vance, along with Marq Piper, both of them young Lords after the death and displacement, respectively, of their fathers, rose back into his saddle and wheeled around for Harroway. The other two Vances in Robb's guard, Ronnel and Hugo, were of the other branch of his family, the Vances of Atranta, and they gave Karyl long looks as he rode off. Wayfarer's Rest, Karyls holdings, were the grander one, with his branch of the family being the richer and greater one all throughout the history of their House, but now only Karyl and his three daughters remained of the Vances of Wayfarer's Rest. Robb rubbed his eyes at the thought of all the troubles he was having with dynastic disputes. It made him want to summon all his lords and give them a stern talking to.
Donella Hornwood, born Manderly, had still not answered his sent request to legitimise her late husband's bastard. Hoster Blackwood was still nowhere to be seen, and his father's burial was approaching quickly. Who was ruling that venerable House now? Little Ben Blackwood, fourteen years old? And nothing to mention the crises of succession with the Vances, Bethany Dustin having yet to name any heirs to her husband's lands, none of the Skagosi chiefs consulting him about anything, and the Freys having withdrawn to the Crossing after leaving only half their force with his army, and-
He sighed aloud and shook his head, reaching up to rub at his eyes. His crown was in his saddlebags, replaced with his helmet when he rode, but he could still feel the weight of it on his head. It was the heaviest damned thing he had ever carried, and with every mile travelled away from Pinkmaiden it only seemed heavier. Margaery made him forget his worries. He had too many bloody things to contend with while in the field, leading a war. So much of it had to be postponed, but his inaction was letting his kingdom slip into chaos. He needed someone to lean on, people to advise him on matters of peace, a council to delegate his needs to. A group loyal to-
"Your Grace?" Patrek Mallister watched him flinch and wheel around while the squires and pages raised his tent, his eyes wide and darting everywhere and every which way. "Is anything the matter?" There was a sense of giddiness in him, of great and impossible happiness mixed with bitterness and sorrow, yet there was no source of the emotions, no origin of them. Except for-
"Get me a chair" he ordered, and within moments a felt camping seat was unfurled within the raised tent, and so he sat down on it after he sent his guards away. I leaned back, made himself as comfortable as he could within his armour, before he closed his eyes and drifted.
Brother. That was the word, wasn't it? Word or not, Robb was happy. Happier than he had been in a long while.
His brother was back, and they danced and jumped about each other, pushing each heads into each other and sniffing each other. Brother smelled of blood, of humans, of ice and the Cold Lands, of the Others, of sorcery.
Of course, Brother's bonded human had much more Green in him than Robb's, which made things so much simpler for him. Brother was bigger too, taller than him but not as muscled or strong. He was no longer the runt of the litter, and his white fur had grown elegant and long in the moons that they had been apart.
He was whole. He was safe. And it was so very good to see him again. Together they threw their heads back and raised their muzzles towards the cold sunny sky and together they sang-
Robb's eyes shot open and he stood in the very same moment as everyone around him stopped dead and still in their motions. On the wind they heard it, from the sparse woods on the banks upstream from Harroway: the howling of a Direwolf. And the howling of another. Two of them, singing together, the sound of a primal and sorcerous time long entombed but now returning.
"Ghost" Robb grinned and stormed out of the newly erected tent to stand on the precipice of that grassy hill, the wind sweeping back his hair as he smelled the coming of snow, and from the bottom of the hill, atop a black horse with pale white eyes, came a familiar shape riding with Greatjon Umber and Hoster Blackwood in tow. "Jon".
Jon had grown a bit since they last met. He still looked as long-faced and brooding as ever, his black hair longer around his shoulders – he has never met a girl that he's liked more than his hair – yet stubble covered his cheeks and his chin and he seemed taller, even a little taller than Robb. He wore black leathers, no cloak as if the chill of the Southron winter didn't bother him in the slightest, and the sword at his side had a white pommel in the shape of a Wolfshead in stone. Longclaw. Must have been. Robb had heard of it in the message sent by Bran and Maseter Luwin from Winterfell after Jon had rescued them. And when Jon unhorsed before him with little fanfare they stood there, opposite each other, saying nothing for a little while as all others around them regarded them in silence.
"Your Grace-" Jon began awkwardly, only to be cut short in his words as Robb took a few long strides towards him and wrapped his arms around him, lifting him into the air by his waist by a bear-like embrace, Jon still as scrawny as ever compared to him. "Your Grace! You're choking me!" Jon managed to force out before Robb placed him back on the ground, and the two grinned as they took each other by the wrist, a warrior's handshake, just like they had done when they were children.
"Don't you bloody well call me that" Robb's smile faded with emotion, and he gripped his brother by the back of the hair and forcefully put their foreheads together, both their eyes closing as they stood at the top of that grassy hill. In their combined sorrow they mourned then the father that they had lost and the family that had been so harrowed and almost torn from them, of their broken and lonely brothers, of their sisters held in captivity. "Not you. Everyone else, can call me that, but you'll call me Robb. Nothing but".
"Of course… brother" Jon answered and the two parted, each still gripping the other by the wrist. Emotions passed between them, things experienced beyond words, family and innocence lost for both of them, the world changed and torn away from under them. Too much to put into words, too much at once. So instead they spoke to each other like brothers. Jon began, a small smirk on his lips. "Told you I'd be all in black when we saw each other again. I leave you alone for one bloody year, and you crown yourself king".
"It is Greatjon's fault" Robb grinned like he had used to, just like when they were mere boys back in Winterfell. "I kicked so much Lannister arse that my boots started smelling permanently of lion shit, and suddenly the Lords started having all sorts of opinions. I was lucky that Greatjon was the loudest. One poor fool wanted to crown me as emperor of the moon".
"Less bloody outlandish, that. Never imagined you to be a king – you'd probably make a mess of it" Jon shook his head at the foolishness in mock severity before a thought occurred to him. "And what is this I hear? 'Robbard'? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Aye". He let go of Jon's wrist and rubbed at the back of his head through his hair. "About that…"
"It sounds stupid" Jon went on, arching an eyebrow at him. He was scarred now, Robb noticed, scratched across the face by some unknown foe, and he had noticed the mass of scars on his hands even through his black gloves and Robb's brown ones. Burn scars. "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking of how my children would one day learn our family tree" Robb shrugged and adopted a slightly more nasally voice, as if badly mimicking the speech of a young boy. "'So, master Maester ser, there used to be a lot of Kings of Winter. Torrhen, Benjen, Dorren, Theon, Harlon, Jon, Jorah, Rickard, Rodrik, about five hundred thousand blokes called Brandon, and then some fuck called Robb'". He cocked his head to the side and one eyebrow up. "Didn't fit".
"Your children" Jon nodded and went to stand by Robb's side as he turned to look out over the river and the six ships now gathered along the banks while the citizens of Lord Harroway's Town slowly returned to their homes under the watchful eyes of the Stark and Umber men. "I'll have children too, you know" Jon mentioned as little more than an aside. "One day. No oaths about that anymore. Children with the name Stark. Thanks for that. Never thought I would" he added in a very casual manner.
"You're welcome, brother" Robb inclined his head as they regarded the ships ahead of them. "You know, I should probably get you married off" he sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Get started on those children right away. We need more Starks to ensure the bloodline trundles along".
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves" Jon made a face of pained dismay. "We can talk arranged marriages and girls when I've gotten some food in me. And wine. And sleep. Gods help me, how I hate boats".
"Seasick?". Jon nodded, to which he wondered if it really counted as seasickness if you were on a river instead of actually at sea. Well, the Trident was wide enough to be counted as a small sea in several places. If you went by really, really small seas. "Never had that problem myself. Heard it can be a right arse. You've got my sympathies".
"Thanks" Jon muttered before he frowned, neither of them looking at each other, still regarding the lazily flowing water of the river. "And when were you ever on a boat? You've never been sailing across any seas. Is it a recent thing?"
"No. Father took me touring the North a few years back, remember?" All those memories; every one of them had been happy, exited, glorious for only a short time ago, but now every single one was just as bitter as it was sweet. "We sailed from White Harbour to Karhold. I wrote to you about the day I went ashore. Alys Karstark pushed me into one of the ponds in the Karhold godswood. Cold bloody things, those. Nearly froze my bollocks off". He considered for a moment. "Alys would be a good match. Daryn Hornwood's dead, so-"
"Can't we talk about it later?" Jon wondered, to which Robb shrugged and they went back to staring blankly out over the Trident. Robb's eyes soon fell on the ship that had brought his brother south to his side, and Jon noticed. "She's called the Fat Sow. We got her in a village in Frey lands. Her captain and most of the crew died when the Bloody Mummers boarded her. I suppose she's mine now, but you can have her".
"Ugly damn thing" he noted absently, his mind labouring furiously with sudden ideas. "It's wide, stable, slow but spacious at both aft and bow. I could have a ballista or a springald mounted on either platform. Maybe have the railings raised to provide cover for crossbowmen or archers. Put platforms for marksmen in the masts. Would come in handy when besieging any castles along the waters. It would have to hug the coastline, cumbersome, but I'd say it was about time that I made myself a royal navy, wouldn't you? It has to start somewhere".
"You've got Glover and Manderly men in the rest of your army?" Robb nodded. "I'll go see them, ask their carpenters what they can do for you". He paused, a darkness shifting over him that even Robb could sense. "We were attacked just south of the Frey crossing. Bandits disguised to look like Frey men, or Frey men poorly disguised as bandits".
"Walder fucking Frey" Robb cursed quietly. "I've tried to make peace with him. I've offered him my uncle instead of me. I've offered to make concessions regarding trade, but he's yet to respond. Now I know why. Bandits, you say? He'll just say that they were highwaymen of which he knew nothing. If they are his then none of his patrols will catch them, while my own people will feel their blades all the sharper for it. But I don't have the time or the men to deal with him now. Once the Westerlands are beaten and we have peace once again… Peace. A dream of a notion, now. A word merely, without meaning".
"Once we've beaten the Westerlands, and thrown the Ironborn back into the sea" Jon added bleakly, remembering the things that he had seen beyond the Wall. The Dead that Walked, and past them, hidden in the frozen fog; the killing frost. The White Shadows. "There will be lots more wars to come. The sailors told me about Stannis Baratheon, for one. And there is something else. A man named Mance Rayder is gathering a Wildling army hundreds of thousands strong in the lands beyond the Wall. Something's driving them south. We should arm and support the Night's Watch-"
"I've got two wars to fight, three if I'm not careful, and you want to drag me into a fourth?" Robb grumbled and rubbed at his eyes. "I'll… do what I can. Most of the men still in the North are mustering to defend against the Ironborn. I just don't have the resources for this fight, Jon. I need more soldiers".
"I take it you've got a plan, brother?" Jon turned to him then, and Robb did the same towards his brother, nodding. He was just about to open his mouth and tell him about Margaery and his plans for Royce and all of the rest of it, even of the times that Grey Wind had spoken to him, when their peace was disturbed by a sudden burst of shouting.
"What'dya mean you bloody broke it?!" Greatjon roared and managed, somehow, to tower over his giant of a son, gripping his oldest son and heir by the collar of his armour as he shook him like a boy of ten. "You bloody broke it?! Wait until your mother hears about this, you mark my fucking words boy! I'll send you to the Boltons-!"
"Peace, Greatjon" Robb pushed the two apart with firm hands, unafraid even of the raging Lord of Umber. "You should be proud of him. He broke it when he captured the Mountain that Rides. That's no cause for punishment. In fact" he spoke up to the band all around them and cleared his throat. "Loras Tyrell, Robar Royce and Smalljon Umber shall all have new swords from me, gifts for saving my life that day. And Hoster Blackwood-" he turned towards the last young man, who now stood, alone and shuddering beneath the weight of the axe that Greatjon had given him, one of the Vances having delivered him the bad news. Robb bit his lip for a second. "Lord Blackwood" Hos's eyes snapped up to his, wide and frightened "your father and brothers died fighting for my cause, fighting my enemy. Ask me any boon, and you-"
"I want a weapon, same as the others" he said, the rage that Greatjon had taught him to channel creeping into his eyes and his voice, distorting his gaze and his speech to make him seem a great many years older than he really were. "And I want to drive it through Gregor Clegane's skull. I want my men to be the ones to take Clegane's Keep, the ones to kill all his family and his household. Vengeance. That's what I want, your Grace".
Robb looked at him in silence. He remembered the boy as a bookish sort, tall and wiry and lacking entirely in balance, but now he was growing muscles, growing heart, and definitely growing mercilessness. "Very well" he nodded and gestured to Maester Ebbert, who had been standing by the side of Robb's new field-bard and personal minstrel Rymund, to hurry forth and make notes of it all with quill and parchment. "You will have your revenge. House Blackwood's levies will march on Clegane's Keep once we've taken the Golden Tooth, and when the time comes for the Mountain to be executed you may swing the axe". He then turned away, signalling that the impromptu audience was at an end, and as he paced away Jon hurried to his side.
"You're actually pretty good at this king business, brother" Jon remarked, though there was no actual surprise on his voice. "Where to now?" he wondered as they mounted their horses, Jon's new steed prancing restlessly beside Armstark before they turned the horses towards Lord Harroway's Town and urged them forwards. "Speak to me, brother".
"Tytos, Brynden and Lucas died before my eyes, Jon" he answered in what was almost a snarl as he went, trotting down the hillside. "I lead my father's people in revolt against the family that he swore to obey. By my actions thousands of men die, and my dreams are filled with screams. Screams, blood, and the flashing of blades in the dark. Margaery… she makes me forget. She makes me think of the sunshine and not the rain, the future and not the past, the summer and not the Winter. Tell me, brother" he asked before they rode into Harroway proper. "Is that a good thing?"
"For you, aye" Jon replied, his face and entire countenance furrowed in concern. "Perhaps not for us, for Winter is Coming. Margaery – she the one you forsook the Freys for? The gatekeeper at the Crossing told us about that". Robb did not reply for a little while, and so Jon pushed. "Is she pretty?"
"She's beautiful, she's kind and she's mine" Robb muttered, to which Jon shrugged. He knew his brother meant nothing by it, but still he could not help but snap and be territorial like a wolf around his mate. Had that been because of the Wolfsblood that Willas had spoken about? Was there some inherent savagery inside his heart? Was he nothing but a slave to brutality and passion and vengeance, checked only notions of honour? Forsake honour. Gods, what he would give for one straightforward answer. "Margaery. Margaery Tyrell". Summer-Sun. He glanced over his shoulder to find Grey Wind and Ghost padding quietly after them behind their horses, and it was almost as if the happily panting grey Direwolf gave Robb an incredulous glance. "Grey Wind likes her".
"Well, if the Direwolf thinks that she will do". Jon's tone clearly indicated that he would have rolled his eyes had he been a person prone to rolling his eyes. "She's got brown hair, then? Slender? Big brown eyes like a doe?" Robb shot him a look. "What? We grew up together. You've always fancied women with brown hair. I've always wondered why".
"Starks are supposed to have dark hair, not red" he replied. "And what about you? All the girls you were ever sweet on – except for Alys Karstark – were red of hair. And don't you give me that look. I know how you blushed when I told you to go dance with her during father's feast. Aye, aye" he chuckled at Jon's dark look "I'll stop talking about Alys bloody Karstark".
"How is she, this Southron princess of yours? What's she like?" Jon asked as they rounded a corner in the streets and saw an open square of cobbled stone just up ahead, people lining the road to stare in silence at the two of them and their great beasts, a few of Robb's honour guard hurrying to fall in behind the Direwolves as the soldiers of Robb's vanguard cheered him on with cries of "King of the Trident!" and "King in the North!". Robb mused on that question, and when he did answer his mood was surprisingly sorrowful.
"You think that even if we all got back to Winterfell after winning the war things would be the same? That Mother and Sansa and all her ladies will still have their singing lessons in Mother's solar?" he asked Jon, more of a question for the Gods than for men and thus entirely rhetorical. "Father's dead. Mother's forlorn with grief. Bran's broken, Rickon's always angry or crying, and who knows what that inbred shite Joffery has put Arya and Sansa through. Margaery… she's a spot of light. I can't explain it. When I'm around her the day feels sunny, somehow, even if the sky is grey or we're in the dead of night. The Lannisters stole all the songs from Winterfell, Jon. Margaery might just bring them back". He shook his head and breathed out hard. "Does that make any sense?"
"Aye – what sense I make of it is that you're stupid in love" Jon gave a shadow of a smile as they approached the House Roote keep around which the town was built, its drawbridge lowered and men of the house as well as a myriad of other Riverlander Houses streaming in and out of it, many of the men the Vance grey and gold or grey and green, others in the red and blue finery of House Tully, a few Riverlander knights in their tell-tale scale mail armours that shimmered like the skins of salmons, catfishes and trout. On their way they carried weapons and shields, helping wounded or displaced citizens at the king's command, and Robb and Jon stopped before a command post to the side of the draw bridge, unhorsing to speak with the captain there.
While most of the men in the immediate vicinity either cheered, saluted or bowed in Robb's presence, those that did not stare at Grey Wind and Ghost whispering "Wasn't there supposed to be only one of them?", Jon glanced to Robb, who looked back before giving him a slight shove across one shoulders. Understanding, Jon cleared his throat and spoke to the elderly, eight-fingered knight in charge. "Report".
Robb nodded approvingly as Jon began to assume command, and he was fairly good at it. He must have been, given the reports that he had gotten from Greatjon and Maester Luwin about Jon's progress during their journey South. He was turning into a capable leader quickly enough. Good. He needed loyal men. "We've taken some of their striped horses, so we have, Lord Stark, your Grace" the knight captain went on while Robb listened on only half an ear. "Zorses, I think they're called. Most of their men died on their swords, or ours, rather than be captured. Their commander didn't, though. He hid in a pigsty, after raping and maiming his way through a tanner's family. We've got him in the cells in irons-"
"Hold" Jon asked, and the older veteran of many wars promptly shut up. "Your name, man?"
"Ser Janas Perryn, my Lord Stark" the old man replied and let one of his gauntleted hands, armour mismatched and piecemeal and his head as bald as an unpeeled egg. "Fought beside your Lord Father, so I did, at the Ruby Ford and Pyke. Since I was the only one who knew how to read amongst this lot" he jerked his only thumb at the men behind him, peasant levies with clubs and spears and a few hedge knights even more rough in appearance than him "I got them sorted out for you".
"You're a good man, Ser Janas" Jon nodded and took him by the green shoulder pauldron of his armour. "Have that man brought before me and the King, then get someone to relieve you so that you can get some rest. You've done good work for House Stark".
"King of the Trident" Janas bowed towards Robb before he left over the drawbridge, shouting orders into the keep. "Oi! Fuckwits! The king wants the Black Goat by his feet! Quick as you bloody well can, you stinking shits!"
"North or South, at the Wall or not, some people respond well to threats and degradation" Jon remarked, and Robb wondered what he must have suffered up there, on the edge of the known world. He was different, that much he could tell, by his scars and how he still wore nothing but black despite having forsaken his vows. Or had he? Robb wondered. Perhaps some parts of the oaths he had sworn were more easily broken than others. Perhaps he had done something, seen something, to be bound in loyalty to the Night's Watch in cause but not name. That was evident enough.
Jon did do his duty to him well enough, and had done so in the past, he reflected as a tall and gaunt man with a long goatee dangling from his pointed chin was dragged, kicking and cursing and begging in both the common tongue and some thick, dark, imperious tongue, was dragged before them and shoved down onto an old stool that would serve as their block. A small crowd was gathering around them, mostly soldiers but also burghers and peasantry who jeered and sneered, shouting accusations at the former leader of the mercenaries that had almost sacked their town. Foul, horrible allegations. They turned Robb's stomach just hearing them. "What's your name?" Jon asked the gaunt man.
"Vargo Hoat" the gaunt and fat-haired murderer began to babble, clearly not above begging. "The Black Goat of Qohor's on my banner, it is very much. I lead the Brave Companions, I've led them through all the reaches of the world, and I can be of service to you, your Grace, so I can be-"
"We don't need men like you" Jon all but spat at the foreigner, his words causing the soldiers around him to mutter and murmur in agreement. "Not even the Boltons would take you. I heard what you did. Sliced the nose and hands and feet of that poor tanner's girl before you raped her. You should lose your life for it. That's the only justice for men like you". He looked to Robb, and so did the rest of them. But Robb made no motion to ask for a sword or to swing the axe himself. He merely looked to his brother.
"Well, go on then" he urged Jon and shoved lightly at his shoulder. "The man that passes the sentence should swing the sword". Jon's eyes shot wide open as he looked from Robb to the monster shaped like a man. "Or you've never killed before?" Jon needed to step up to the task. Robb needed men he could trust to act on his behalf. Jon could, perhaps, be such a man.
"Of course I bloody well have" Jon answered before he rolled his shoulders and drew his sword, taking it in a doublehanded grip while the two men of Robb's own levy held Hoat down. "Vargo Hoat. You are named murderer. Reaver. Rapist. Deserter" Jon spoke up loudly as the Qohorik struggled. "I-" he furrowed his brow and looked to Robb.
"Go on". He needed to be able to do it. He needed to be able to do it, if he was to be a lord, if he was a Stark. Any man could kill another in battle, when the blood sang with terror and rage. But justice took heart and true conviction. "Say it like Father would have said it. Do it like he would've".
Jon nodded and looked back to the struggling man. "In the name of Robbard of the House Stark" he began "first of his name, King of the Trident and of Winter, High Chief of the First Men and King in the North, I" he breathed out hard and then in again, collecting himself. "I, Jon of the House Stark, Lord of the Whispering Wood, sentence you to die".
To Jon's credit he raised his blade and severed the murderous rapist's head from his neck in one fluid strike – or perhaps it was due to the Valyrian steel. Everyone nearby hollered, cheered and applauded, though perhaps it was less because of his showmanship and more because of seeing justice dealt to an evil man.
And then, from the hills outside a town, a messenger came riding. He dismounted as the body of the beheaded mercenary was dragged away to be thrown into a ditch and fed to the crows and knelt before Robb, panting and dirtied, his horse lathered and almost ridden to the death. "News from Harrenhal, your Grace" he panted out. "Tywin's left the keep with only a fraction of his men. He's headed to King's Landing". He looked up to Robb, hesitant and uncertain, but he was urged to go on. "Stannis Baratheon attacked the city, your Grace, but he was beaten back. His fleet burned. Tywin's host fought back what was left".
Silence reigned at the news, and Robb stood deep in thought. That was why the mercenaries and the Lannister men had attacked Harroway – for the ships. They were deserters all, plunderers and cowards of the watching contingent at Harrenhal that had fled when his army came approaching. There was little other reason behind their actions. But the news were distressing. If Stannis's fleet was dispersed, if his forces on land had been smashed, then he had effectively lost the war. Five Kings had been in the war – and now only three remained: a Kraken, a lion-stag abomination, and the Direwolf. And he knew which one of them he was counting on to win.
"Well" he said at last "so much for Stannis and an easy peace. At least I get to kill Joffery myself".
Margaery
"Now, again" Lady Catelyn told Elinor as they sat in their suite in one of the three taverns their following had all but filled in the small town of Mooncross, on the edge of the Reach. "Begin from the top" she tapped the map in front of her with an earnest finger.
"From south of the Wall there is the Gift" Elinor began as Margaery and the other ladies in waiting sat around her, Margaery herself seated on her bed in the far corner with her legs drawn up under her, Lionslayer held in her arms like a young child would have held a stuffed felt animal. "Tended by the Night's Watch. Then there are the Umber lands, known as the Shadow in olden times, because it lies in the Shadow of the Wall. House Umber were called Shadow Kings before they pledged themselves to-"
"Bent the knee" Megga, Alla and Alyce said in one voice from aside Margaery, the five ladies from the Reach sitting opposite to Lady Catelyn in that room that they shared on the top floor of the Inn. Margaery was glad that they travelled in style this time, as the journey south was far less harrowing than the ride north from Bitterbridge had been. "When Northerners do it" Alla went on in her squeaky little voice "they say 'bent the knee'. Very literal, those Northerners".
"-before they bent the knee to the Starks" Elinor went on. Lady Catelyn had taken it upon herself to teach Margaery and her ladies more about the geography and the history of the North, and Margaery had agreed. After all, she needed to know as much as possible about the people she was setting out to rule. All of them needed to. With perhaps the exception of Alyce the lot of them would no doubt be married off to Northern men and lords to cement the Tyrell-Stark alliance. "And to the west of that there is Karhold, by the Shivering Sea coast. It is ruled by the Karstarks, kinsmen to the Starks, and once their land was divided between the Shadow Kings and the Red Kings. Which were-" she stopped and stared at the map before she tentatively looked up at Lady Catelyn. "The kings of the Hornwood?"
"The Kings of the Dreadfort, the Boltons" Catelyn corrected. Margaery had found that the woman that would become her goodmother was a kind enough once you looked past the twilight in her eyes and she forgot her sorrows. As long as you did not mention King's Landing or the Lannisters or Ned Stark or – well, she was deep in gloom and worry most of the time, carving wrinkles into her face, but she took well to teaching Margaery and her ladies the lay of the land that would one day be theirs. And one day soon. They were more than halfway to Goldengrove, the seat of House Rowan, and there they would remain until Robb and Father joined them. She pulled Lionslayer closer to her breast.
Robb. She missed him, him and his giant wolf. It was cold at night, especially on the road, and she wondered if she could bring them both to bed with her. Grey Wind could lay at her feet, keeping warm the foot end of her bed, and Robb could lie beside her with his strong arms wrapped around her, with his lips to her collarbone and his-
"Lady Margaery?" Catelyn spoke up, and so catapulted her from her daydreams with a blush burning on her cheeks. Oh, what would she have said if she knew that she was thinking of her son in such a fashion – but going by her expression she knew well enough, which only served to make Margaery wish that she could sink through the surface of the bed like water and hide her face from the world. "Are you paying attention? Are you tired? Should we retire these lessons until the morrow?"
"Oh no, Lady Catelyn" she waved those concerns away, thinking of a joke she once had heard from… she thought it was Lord Ashford. What do you do if you miss your good-mother? Reload your crossbow and try again. She had no inkling why. She and Lady Catelyn were getting along splendidly – aside from the occasional veiled threat not to break her son's heart or the casual warning that the North was, indeed, very cold. She could have guessed as much, given how much the Northerners went on and on about their winters and their wolves. "Do go on".
"Well then, how about the mercantile lore of each of the principal regions?" Catelyn suggested, to which Margaery cringed internally, a sentiment shared by all of them given the looks that they shot each other. Who in their right mind would willingly want to dedicate hours to the economics of… of anything, really? "Lady Megga – would you start? What are the principal goods provided by the Barrowlands to the greater North?"
Megga, the fatest and loudest of Margaery's ladies, at court and away from court alike, bit her lip as she thought hard on it while the door to the long but narrow room, the largest one in the largest Inn in the village still, opened to let in that paramour of Smalljon's, Bella. "Produce, baked goods, metals and… brass?" Bella nimbly walked between them and placed a tray of cheeses and wine on a table at the end of the bed, which Alyce immediately made host of. Alyce had seemed distressed of late. Margaery made an internal note to ask her about it – and about her relationship with Robar Royce.
"Very good. Yes, the Barrowlands under House Dustin, with their bannermen Moss, Ironsmith, Stout and Holt produce the lionshare of the foodstuffs of the North, along with the lands and houses sworn directly to Winterfell. They are also some of the best smiths and metalworkers in the North. Lady Alla – what can you tell me about the Rills?" Margaery seemed to recall something about Bella being a former woman of the evening in Stoney Sept, and that Robb had sent her to accompany them after he had received several complaints from the Umber men and the berserker chiefs about 'incessant moaning'. Margaery had thought that men preferred women who were vocal in bed, but perhaps it was not so. She would have to ask her. As long as she stayed away from Robb.
She had a sword now. And she was not squeamish about blood.
"Held once by House Ryder, the Horse Kings". Alla was clever, very much so, which was the reason why even though she was yet a girl unflowered she had granted the boon of becoming one of Margaery's handmaidens. She had a very easy time of learning new things. "The Ryders went extinct in the male line seven hundred years ago and the Rills, with the principal holding being Snowbourne, fell to their cadet branch, House Ryswell. They breed some of the finest mounts in the North. Their horses are the backbone of the Northern shock forces. And their principal vassals include the Glenmores of Rillwater Crossing and the Lightfoots of Trail's End".
"Very good, Lady Alla" Catelyn smiled, and Alla beamed under the praise. Margaery knew that Alla's mother, Alys Beesbury, was stern and cold woman even to her own children, and perhaps that was why Alla cleaved so closely to a mother as caring and concerned as Lady Catelyn. "Lady Margaery – the Wolfswood houses and clans". Of course she got the hard ones. She was the one that was supposed to become queen one day. She raked her memory for every single little thing that Robb had told her, as well as all the other things she had learned–
"House Glover rules the Wolfswood from Deepwood Motte. Beyond venison their principal exports are lumber and ore. House Forrester, one of their sworn houses, are the only ones in the world who can properly grow and fashion Ironwood. Other than that they provide skirmishers and archers for the Northern army. They favour longbows, and often wear dark hoods and cloaks over boiled leather armour and light chainmail. They are best deployed for harrying tactics and ambushes, though as rangers they also fight fairly competently in the melee against lightly armoured foes. You shouldn't keep them in formation next to Umber men under any circumstances, though, and as for discipline-" they were staring at her. All of them. "Um… what is it? Do I have something on my face?" She had been eating a consomme for supper, after all.
"You have been spending far too much time around my son" Catelyn noted, which reduced all the other ladies into fits of giggles and snickers. Margaery blushed and looked away, but from across the narrow room Catelyn reached out and took her by the hand. "Don't fret. I am glad that my son has found someone that isn't as terribly bored by military matters as most noble ladies are. As a boy I feared that he would go down the way of Daeron Targaryen, the first of his name: die too young in battle, seeing war as a game".
"He does not do that" Margaery replied in a quiet voice as the giggles died down. "He only wants to go home and rule in peace. He doesn't want glory or fame. He wants justice, and then he wants to care for his family and his people. He wants to stop fighting and start building. He is a good man, and-" they were still staring at her, though now in a much more different way.
"You really do care for him, do you?" Catelyn smiled at her, smiled at her earnestly, and Margaery nodded back at her, suddenly shy. "I am very happy to see it. My son is a fortunate man". She leant back against the wall behind her bed and turned her head towards the room's solitary window, a wistful expression on her face. Margaery could not help but to think of something that had been bothering her in the silence that followed, and so she finally spoke up.
"Lady Catelyn, if I might ask" she began, feeling overly formal but still uncertain about calling her 'mother' or 'good-mother', as she and Robb weren't even betrothed yet. "What will be your title?" Catelyn looked at her, and she did feel a little foolish. "I mean, after Robb and I are married, too. What is your title now? I know the Northerners do not hold very close on formality, but we will have to introduce you at court in Highgarden, and we do stand very much on ceremony there". She wondered mostly what her own title would be, though asking that flat out would only serve to make her seem self-obsessed in the eyes of her would-be good-mother.
"I haven't given a thought to it". Lady Catelyn frowned softly. "I've always been Lady Tully or Lady Stark. Now" she sighed and looked back out the window. "I suppose that it would have been Queen Mother or Queen Dowager, had my Ned been King in the North. But" she shook her head, almost to herself. "But I think that maybe 'Lady Mother' would be best. I have never made any pretentions towards being anything else". She looked back to Margaery and smoothed out her features in kind silence. "What should concern you more is your own title, Lady Margaery. Queen consort or queen regnant?"
"Queen consort, obviously" she answered. It was the clear answer. The distinction was a simple one – a queen consort held no official powers or rights, while a queen regnant was a ruler of her own accord. A woman of the Reach never aspired to actual royal power, though she could hold it just the same, and… why was Lady Catelyn looking at her like that? What is it with all the looks today? "Is something wrong?"
"The Northerners do not distinguish. They will have one title: Queen in the North. And you will have enough power to only be overruled by a single man within the bounds of your kingdom: Robb. They will listen to you. They will obey you when you mediate between them. Win their loyalty, and they will march into their graves for you as readily as they do for my son". The silence was tangible, the surprise in her heart visible for all of them to see. She should have expected that. "You have seen how the Lords defer to me, just because I was married to their Liege Lord and because I am the mother of their King. You will have the same power. More of it. Lady Margaery: what will you do with this power?" Absently Margaery noticed that Catelyn looked pleased at her confusion.
Not out of spite, perhaps. It was because Catelyn knew then, for certain and for the first time, that she wasn't doting on Robb because of the power that he would provide her. Honestly she hadn't even given it a second thought. Margaery knew that noble women in the North had generally more independence and power than their Southron counterparts, she had known that for quite a while, and she had always desired the freedom of thought and action that power provided, but being a queen regnant didn't bring with it power as much as it brought with it responsibilities. Power and responsibility were two very different things.
And she didn't know the first thing about actually ruling… well, anything. "Lady Margaery?" Catelyn wondered as she let the sword fall from her grasp and she put her head in her hands. "Are you quite alright? I am sorry if I upset you-"
"The Umbers had a lord that used to eat people" Margaery all but whispered, shocked horror on her voice. "The Boltons used to flay people. Skin them and wear them as cloaks! The Whitehills hate the Forresters, the Glovers hate the Umbers, the Umbers hate the Cerwyns and the Hornwoods-"
"And now we know who has been paying the most attention during your lectures, Lady Catelyn" Elinor smiled at Margaery's would-be good-mother.
"-and everyone except for the Manderlys and Wells worship trees! Trees!" She shook her head in great dismay and shuddered. "How in the Seven Hells am I supposed to rule that? I have seen how Robb has to bark to get them to fall in line. I'm not that commanding. Some of even the women – the women! – are thrice my size and have five times my weight. They will eat me. Literally".
"Well, to be fair, Rimefrost Umber was notoriously mad" Catelyn supplied from aside, to which Margaery only groaned, in a loud and decidedly un-ladylike fashion, and sank deeper down into her hands. "Do not worry, Margaery" her soft hands lifted her up by the sides of her head and looked her closely in the eyes. "I will teach you all that I know. I will make sure that they will follow you more readily than they do even Robb".
"Thank you, Catelyn" Margaery whispered at her, to which her would-be good-mother shook her head.
"Please, Margaery, call me Cat. All my friends do. I do hope we will be friends". And the sorrow seemed to lift off of her, if only a little.
"Thank you, Cat" Margaery smiled back at her. It suddenly occurred to her that she would have two mothers soon enough. And, surprisingly, she wasn't averse to the notion at all.
As they talked and thought all throughout the night, she wondered what Robb was doing.
Robb
"I wonder that Margaery's doing" Robb spoke aloud, and all the other men with him in the tent groaned loudly, their heads in their hands and their mind in their cups. "She's probably eating something. Like cheese. She likes cheese". He took another sip of his wine and smiled broadly at Jon. "She's pretty. Like, really, really pretty".
"So you keep saying, brother" Jon sighed and moved to take the cup away from him, but he missed and fell over in his chair so hard that it nearly tumbled over and fell to the ground. Of course, what was the reunion between two brothers and a celebration of victory if there was no drinking or feasting to mark the occasion as special? And so they had taken heavily to the wine they had taken from the Lannister carts and saddlebags. It was, according to Robb, the sweetest drink there was: the wine of a vanquished enemy. "Could everyone stop moving?" Jon complained in a drawl before he slumped forwards in his seat and hit the surface of the oaken table in the middle of the tent with a loud thud. "Ow" he winced unconvincingly.
"You lot think she likes flowers?" Robb asked the rest of the table, which were on one side Patrek Mallister, Hugo Vance, that old knight Janas and Marq Piper, and on the other Greatjon, Smalljon, Ronnel Stout, Owen and Robar Royce, the Umber heir and the Bronze Knight sitting closely together in earnest discussion. "I think she likes flowers. She's always in the gardens, and she smells like flowers. I think I shall have them build another glass garden in Winterfell, just for her. And a harp. She told me that she likes playing the harp. A harp with flowers on it… or a harp made out of flowers".
"Can you believe that he's only known the lass for a little while, and already he's marrying her?" Owen asked the young Lord Piper across the table, to which he got only a shrug in response. "I mean, she was obviously out to seduce him, wasn't she? And it's been no time at all! He can't be so in love already! Did she slip him a potion or something?"
"He's young, she's fair, and he's a king" Marq noted with a sigh as he whisked about his wine inside his cup and looked for the trail it left behind on the silver lining, being a true connoisseur of vintages as he was. "That's a powerful combination, clansman. It could have been a lot worse. Look at that inbred abomination that currently graces the Iron Throne. I say we toast. To young love!" he raised his cup, and from almost everyone, even Jon who could not even sit upright, the toast was echoed.
Except from Smalljon and Robar. "I do not know what to do" Smalljon had finally gotten the Bronze Knight to confess to what had been troubling him so for the last days since leaving Pinkmaiden, by way of copious amounts of what Smalljon's great-uncles would have referred to as "piss", and it was clear that the Umber heir now regretted it firmly. "I dishonoured her. I did. No matter how much she kissed me afterwards. And in the sept, no less! Gods – what if I made her with child?!"
"Would the bairn be a Stone, a Rivers or a Flowers?" Smalljon wondered aloud, and Robar Royce, who had stood fearless before a rain of arrows and laid low the Mountain, uttered a strangled sound of drunken horror and put his hand to his eyes. "What's the bloody issue, mate?" Smalljon sighed. "Next time you meet Lady Graceford, just take her by the hand to the godswood and have a few witnesses with you as you say the words and wrap your fucking cloak around her shoulders. Not that much of a thing to fuss over, if you're sweet on her and she's got your child growing in her belly. Which she might not. No offence to your cocksureness, mate, but few men hit the boss the first time they loose an arrow, if you ken my meaning".
"Oh, blessed Seven!" Robar crumpled back into his chair. "I have to marry her" he said aloud, before he then shook his head and lowered his voice into a whisper. "No, I will marry her. I want to marry her. Gods help me, what will my father make of this? We Remember. Memory never fades".
"You're an odd little man" Greatjon remarked, having overheard it all but obviously not caring anything at all for the fates and lives of the Valeman. "Memory, memory, memory – my father was dumb as a post years before he died. Lost all of his memories to age. I was Lord long before they gave the Sword to me" he glanced angrily at his son "and long before they had me break the Chains. So fuck memory, I say!" he raised his tankard and hollered. "To Stark! And to Stannis Baratheon! Long may he reign over shite and fuck-all!"
"To Stark!" the others echoed and raised their cups, and Robb grinned and Jon smirked where they sat, side by side at the head of the table, their Direwolves curled up along the walls of the tent close together with their heads leant over each other's backs as they snoozed. "Stark! The King in the North!" After another round of toasting and cheering a shape intruded on their celebration from opposite Robb – Maester Ebbert. "Forgive me, your Grace-" he began, but got no further.
"Oi, Maester!" Greatjon boomed, and Ebbert all but jumped. "You're a Whitehill, aren't you?" he rumbled as he stood and walked over towards the much smaller man in the grey robes, looming over him like a giant of legend. "I bloody well hate Whitehills. Got no respect for a man's land, encroaching on woods and Ironwoods that aren't yours. You've spread your legs for the Seven, but you haven't even got the courtesy of being Southrons like the Manderlys. Tell me, little grey rat of Highpoint" Greatjon leaned in over him, and Robb could tell that Ebbert was visibly sweating. "Why haven't your brother brought more than three hundred men with him to the banners? Why aren't you fighting in the King's war?"
"I am a Maester, Lord Umber" Ebbert replied, the tone and steel of his voice in stark contrast to his countenance's nervousness. "I've sworn a vow of peace. No man shall ever be hurt by my hand, no matter the darkness in his heart or what banner he flies. Peace and order is what I believe in, with all my heart".
"Fucking cowardice, is what it is" Greatjon looked around the room and grinned. "You lot's always been meek at heart. Those Forresters you hate? They're all half Southron now, after old Gregor married that Crownlander wench. And still they are more Northern than you. Where the fuck is your bloody spine, Maester Ebbert?"
"Sometimes strength comes in the form of not fighting" Ebbert said at last and then pushed past the Greatjon to come before Robb, who had been watching the whole exchange in silence. He wanted to know what the Maester was made out of, after all. "Your Grace, there are two men and a boy to see you" he told, severity marring his face. "They claim they are the last of the Brotherhood without Banners".
"Well then, send them in" Robb said as he stood, a little unsteady before he shook his head and forced down his drunkenness. Ebbert nodded and left, bringing Small-and-Greatjon with him along with Marq and Janas who helped Jon away to his tent. And soon they were sent in – one man, Northern and of average height, one tall lad with lush black hair and vivid blue eyes, and one short boy with pale blonde hair and deeply blue eyes that almost appeared purple. But as they knelt before him where he stood, all as one in their worn leathers and dirtied travelling clothes splotched with mud and blood, Robb only had eyes for the Northerner.
"Harwyn?" Robb asked as he took the man by the wrist and raised him up to stand on his own two feet. He might have been bearded and thinner of hair, but it was him, one of the very same twenty men that had ridden South with Father and Sansa and Arya from Winterfell all those months ago. "Gods, man, I can't believe that it is you! Is-?"
"Only six of your Lord father's guard survived the massacre at the Red Keep, your Grace" Harwyn bent his head and stepped back and away, gesturing to the young men behind him to rise. "The Gods and Ancestors kept their shields over me. I was lucky, your Grace. Your Lord father – not so much". He looked over his shoulder at the two. "These lot here's Edric Dayne, the boy Lord of Starfall and the Torrentine, and Gendry". Harwyn had been one of the best riders of Winterfell, and the one to teach Arya and Bran before he rode South with Father. "I took up with the Brotherhood Without Banners, but with the Brotherhood now all dead…"
"Most of the others're dead" said the large fellow, the one that looked so much like Renly and Robert, and even that bastard child Edric that Margaery had brought with her to Pinkmaiden, that it was more than merely uncanny, and Robb wondered if he too was somehow related to Robert Baratheon. Another bastard? The late Stag King was supposed to have had dozens. "Lem got his throat cut by that boy-raping septon in the Bloody Mummers. Tom got speared through the balls by one of the Mountain's men. Thoros got a sword through the eye, and then Lord Berric just crumpled to the ground, like a puppet that's got its strings cut. Anguy; he's probably alive and off wenching or something. Brotherhood Without-bloody-Banners – so much for us". Under Robb's gaze he swallowed hard before he knelt down on the ground just like he had done earlier. "M'name's Gendry, m'Lord. I used to smith, in King's Landing. Um… Lord Berric knighted me, he did. Knight of the Hollow Hill. But I dunno if that counts, with him being all pagan to you lot, and-" he, wisely enough, stopped talking.
"Berric Dondarrion was praised by my father, Eddard" Robb nodded, considering the fact that the man was simple but seemed loyal enough and was built like a battering ram, like a less hairy version of Smalljon though less tall and even broader and more muscled. "He was a man of honour. If you enter my service you will never want for work, Ser Gendry, neither as smith nor as knight. By my power I uphold your anointment. I, Robb Stark, name you-" Gendry's eyes shot open at the name, a reflex of a reaction born of familiar knowledge, and Robb noticed something queer about that. The hedge knight looked to Harwin, confused.
"Your Grace" Harwin said from aside in a hushed tone belaying a smile "we've news of your sister".
END
A/N: It occurred to me that we've never seen Jon either drunk or on a boat. So here you are. You're welcome.
It's remarkably hard to keep track of all events that transpire in the books, ya know? Let's just say that we've officially moved into A Storm of Swords territory from this chapter onwards. It's only going to get darker and weirder from here on out.
You might notice that I'm killing off some characters to the left and to the right, especially some of the "Bad Guys". Partially this is because I feel that too many villains for the main characters to oppose lends itself only to a lack of focus, and I like to keep a tight rein on the themes and undertones of my writing. Also, some principal villains that are not complex felt a little... cartoonish is not the right word. If this was a cartoon it would be one of the horrible ones that no kids would ever watch because of all the tits and violence. Vargo Hoat and some others, being evil for the LOLs and little else, says more about GRRM's view of the world than of the narrative of the story in my eyes.
There will be other antagonists, though. All in good time, dear readers. I encourage you to patience. Also, I recalled that Alyce Graceford was pregnant in the novels around this time, and since story and all... I could not resist the chance at some good old fashioned drama.
So, anyway, that was that. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. The best is yet to come.
Ta.