Chapter Fourteen – Stone by Stone
Roose
As he listened to the wolf girl idly talk he watched his men and the Stark levy ride side by side, the vanguard of their cavalry riding ahead of them. Gods, My Grandfather would have foamed at the mouth if he saw this.
"Oi, Leechlord" she summoned his attention sharply as a gathering of Glover scouts, rangers of the Wolfswood in leathers and light arms on small shaggy ponies, rode past them back up the column of the army on the road. In the distance, past the banners and the tips of the pikes and the lances of the vanguard he saw the Westerlander village of Oxcross, the Direwolf flying above the bell tower of its burned-out sept, leaping in the breeze in that cloudy day. Contingent after contingent of the Northern army had passed through the village, splitting up as they headed to roam the Westerlands and burn it like the Lannisters had the Riverlands just a scant of a year earlier, and now the people of the village cowered in their homes, watching the Northerners march past them in silent fear. "Oi" Arya prodded again, riding beside him on her mountain pony. "What're you thinking about?"
"How your family and mine used to enjoy killing each other". She merely shrugged at the answer, caring little. "In the age of Heroes" Gods, what a foolish name "my ancestors used to make cloaks out of the skins of yours. Put them on our racks and work them until they stopped screaming forever. Does that not bother you, like it bothers your brothers?" Then again, they had stoft stomachs like most people. She did not. Perhaps that was why he liked her so.
Most likely that was a part of it. A small part of it, at least.
"Why would it?" she asked back at him, seemingly perplexed. "They're not me. They've been dead for a thousand years or something. And sometimes, if someone has been killing your friends, you want to make him scream". She seemed to think on it a little more and then shrugged again. "And sometimes, if you want to know something but they won't tell you, you've got to hurt them to make them talk. Don't you?"
Roose looked back at her, eyeing her carefully. She looked back at him, grey eyes colder than the starless midwinter nights over the Dreadfort. Ruthless, calculating, savage – but clever, quick to obey, eager to learn and fastidious. It was as if she was the best parts of Ramsey and Domeric both, rolled up into one. Gods, if I had a daughter I would wish she was like her… he pushed the idle affection out of his mind. Maybe he would one day, if Walda popped babes out of her quim like she popped tarts into her mouth.
He'd have to get rid of Ramsey first, then. A task that had proved difficult in the past. "Clever girl" he noted with a nod her way. "But it isn't just about hurting them. About peeling the skin off their backs. It's about stripping the hope from them, drowning them in darkness. Then, when they have nothing left, show them a way out. They will offer you the world and everything in it to you in return".
"Not like the man you worked on ten nights ago" she pointed out shrewdly, harkening back to the night when she had intruded on his work in the Bolton region of the camp. "He had a rag in his mouth. You didn't want anything out of him. Not his screams or anything. Why was that?" They were riding some distance ahead of his personal guard, followed by Robb's honour guard, followed in turn by the marching infantry of their respective sections of the army and the Weirwood Raiders.
Roose blinked at her and thought on it, giving her a slight smile that he knew would make any other man or woman than that girl and his own bastard shiver in fear. "That was for my amusement, and to keep my skills as honed as my blades. Because of his foolish puns, girl". He had finally tracked down the man who made all the puns about the name of their king – looks like Golden Tooth's about to get Robbed, gents – and made him suffer for it, stealing him away from the patrol he had been assigned to when he was by the latrine taking a piss. A dumb fool, dim-witted yet thinking himself clever. Those poor jokes and gone through the camp like a plague and caused Roose no small amount of affronted rage on behalf on the mere concept of wit. Arya had intruded on his work when he was some ways into avenging himself on that man and his fool puns.
At first he had been vexed, peeved that a nameless rat of a child had managed to sneak into his very own abattoir tent where he kept the rack and the other instruments of his gory work, that his Red Rider guards hadn't as much as seen her enter, but when she settled against a table covered with flaying knives and said, coldly, that she wanted to speak with him, he had been intrigued. With the thin sword at her hip and the dagger in her belt he could tell that she was some manner of murderer in spite of her age. A dagger in the dark, sent to kill him? Or a messenger of the Freys or the Lannisters come to implore him to take up arms for their hopeless cause once more?
He had asked of her to reveal and unfold herself as he worked with his best blade on the gagged naked man strapped to the wooden stand, and he had almost slipped with the knife and severed the veins in the man's loins when he heard that her name was Arya Stark. She said that she wouldn't have revealed her name in another place or another camp, but this was her brother's army. The thought of her older brother Robb being king didn't seem to faze her in the slightest. As if it changed nothing. And in a way it had not, not for the Smallfolk perhaps. But certainly for her.
They talked idly for a few hours that night, idle small talk as if she wasn't watching him flay all the skin off the back, chest and thighs of one of his own men. He began to notice her spirit then, stony hard and cold yet fierce and wild, and by then he was already fascinated. When she asked him what he knew of Braavos and the Faceless Men he had asked what she wanted with that knowledge. She had been loath to explain herself, and so he had been loath to answer. But that morning, as she helped him saddle his horse and strap his pauldrons to his breastplate, she had finally revealed the reason to him.
"Girl" he spoke up as they rode, knowing that they would have to part soon. The four riders-wide formation up the road was actually consistent of double ranks of Dreadfort men riding next to double ranks of Winterfell men, and by the Oxcross crossroads Roose would take his levy north, following the Barrowdown men north towards the Iron Hills on the coast of the Sunset Sea and Ironman's Bay. Meanwhile Robb Stark would take the Winterfell levy – and the Cerwyn, Cassel, Holt, Long and Condon levies and riders with them, all Houses of the Northern heartland dominated by Winterfell – to the south, to Greenfield and then on to Silverhill, bringing Arya with them. "I would hold to my end of the bargain. Listen".
So strange they looked, side by side, the Stark soldiers and the Bolton men. The Stark bannermen in grey and and white and silver, plate worn over their grey chailmail hauberks and shirts, their iron lances bright against the cloud-spotted winter sky of the South, their kettle helmets polished until they shone. The Bolton men coloured their weapons dark, their armours made out of black chainmail over which red leather, richly stitched and ornately carved, was laid, the captains bearing cloaks of ragged furs, and their helmets were vizored like most of the levies from along the Narrow Sea coast were, the visors skeletal and grim, eyes made into mere slits. Odd beside each other.
The Starks were monsters who were thought to be men. The Boltons were men who were thought to be monsters.
She looked up at him on his mottled horse, a Ryswell steed given to him by his late wife's family in his youth, old and deaf yet as fierce and strong as ever. "Aye" she nodded at him, and he drew a deep breath and began to speak.
"My father once inquired from the Faceless Men how much it would cost to kill your Grandfather, Rickard Stark. This I say in confidence, as both are long dead and my uncle killed my father before I cut his head off in turn. It matters little". He kept his gaze locked on the distant horizon as he spoke to her, even as he felt her eyes seem to try to drill into his head with his stare. "All this I tell you now I heard from him, elaborated a little by my time spent in Braavos, trading furs and ore for paints and gold. He said that there was something fundamentally strange about how the Faceless Men behaved. If they believe death to be the sacrament of their faith, that the gift of the Many-Faced God is a mercy, why do they require gold in turn for it? Why is it that all Faceless Men in Westeros claim dominance over the whole of Braavos, like their cult is everywhere, while their temple is a nothing place, visited by few, and they have to smuggle their slayers in and out from the city?"
A perplexed Arya furrowed her brow, waiting for him to expound on the answer, and he had to admit that he was being a little bit obtuse and vague. "The answer, Stark girl, is that they are neither as powerful or as pious as they claim to be. They are not just a faith. They are a religion, a sect. And like all such groups it has allies, enemies, and ambitions to play the game of thrones".
"The current Sea Lord of Braavos knows to fight their power, the power of glamour and shadows. He has a glamour placed on one of the beasts in his palace when he calls for a new First Sword. Those who can see through the wolf and behold the pup, through the tiger and behold the kitten – those he take into his service. The Faceless Men shroud themselves in sorcery, but it can be penetrated. Still the political factions in Braavos – for there are those who are for slavery, against the Sea Lord and for and against a thousand other things – hire their blades. They are a pawn and a player in the game, same as all the others".
"Beyond that" he paused and summoned knowledge buried in the depths of his memory "there is something else I may tell you. Their shadow sorcery – it is not a thing of their own. My father thought that perhaps the first of their number learned tricks from a Shadowbinder in an age long ago. Ineffective tricks almost anyone can learn. Some scant few, though, have sorcery in their blood". He looked over to the far side of her pony where her Direwolf Nymeria trotted. The great grey and motley beast seemed to dislike him. Well, perhaps it was only natural. "Like you do. Perhaps if you learn their tricks you could change your face better than the other Faceless Men could. Maybe you could do it easier".
"How do you know so much about it?" she wondered, and he scoffed. "You wouldn't keep such much thinking on them if you didn't want something from them. What is it? Do you want to hire them for something?"
Not that the thought hadn't occurred to him, but knives were knives, and his own knives he could kill with for no fee at all. "No, Stark girl. In truth, I want to know how their magic works. I want to strap the Kindly Man to my stands and work on him until he tells me all his secrets". If they take faces and wear them, becoming them, could not I do the same with the whole skin of others? Perhaps my ancestors did so in the past. "Which is why I asked to be given the Iron Hills by your brother, to pillage and burn and ravish as best I want".
"Why?" she wondered, having, as he knew, studied at his feet every late evening and night while she in the days stayed close to either one of her two brothers, trying to learn the sword from Jon and the world and its maps from Robb. "There is nothing there. It's almost as poor as the Iron Islands and as dull as the Rills".
"In the legends from the age of heroes the Hooded Kings of the Banefort were sorcerers" he looked to her and smirked, and she wondered more, as she always did. She had an inquisitive mind. Indeed, the best of both his sons mingled in one girl not even of his own blood. How quaint. "With their thralls the Hooded Kings fought for eons against the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. I must admit that I sympathise. Also, they have no doubt secrets hidden in their keeps. I intend to take their castle, put the whole of House Banefort on the rack and unmake their keep stone by stone until I have learned all of their secrets".
"I see". The crossroads before the village drew nearer as they rode, and his vanguard steered towards the right and the north under the signals of drums and bone flutes while the Starks turned south under the call of iron-bound auroachs horns. "When Robb's wedding is done over with, when he's convinced Mother to let me squire for you" and Arya had convinced her brother to let her in turn "will you teach me them too?"
"I've told you, girl. I am no knight, and so you can't be my squire. Only fools and Southrons concern themselves with knighthood". He did, however, think it over. "But I did say you could learn at my side". It was an odd thing, having someone who wanted to learn his bloody trade. Domeric had been too soft, too squeamish, to want to learn how to flay a man's skin from his body, and Ramsey had learnt by Reek and his own cruel imagination. But Arya wanted to learn from him. "Well then, I will share the secrets of Morgan Banefort with you. And teach you how to flay. But only after this tedious war is over". The dungeons of the Dreadfort were uniquely suited for such lessons, after all.
"I'll hold you to that". Her lack of gratitude was another side of her that vexed him to no end, but he was not one to hold to politeness and the foppish tender ways of sentimentality. They said no farewells when they came onto the crossroads and he held his horse to the right, following the vanguard, while she road back to join her brothers. Not a word was traded, but as he rode in silence at the head of his Red Riders he found himself smirking. He had not known that having a surrogate daughter was something that he wanted. How strange. Foolish thoughts – he was getting meek in his old age. Better have Ramsey either done away with or slit his throat before he succumbed to the supposed strengths of a bleeding, womanish heart.
He cast those thoughts to his mind and glanced behind him, and the captain of the riders rode up behind him, removing his helmet as he approached his side, a signal followed by absolute loyalty. By the ornate visor of the helmet, even more face-like and as a skull than those of his men, his rank was affirmed. "Cutter – report".
"Our spy in the Weirwood Raiders is entrenched, m'Lord Bolton" he bowed to Roose in the saddle, his face scarred with scratches and cuts from knives and swords and women's fingernails alike. But Roose wasn't one to punish a man for a little spot of sport, whatever Robb Stark's orders on the treatment of rapists said. Cutter was a good sword, and clever enough for his station. "An' the four of our own approached by the Green Man, Neversleep, for their warging says they've all bonded. One, Slink of the Lonely Hills, got with a weasel of all things. He keeps it in his shirts".
"And the other three?" If the Taking of the Tooth proved anything, it was firstly that Robb Stark was loved by the bards of his mummery – Roose couldn't tell if it was a fool or a shrewd thing – and secondly that Wargs and Skinchangers had their places in an army, and a very important one at that. He had been blessed by fortune, it seemed. He requested the oblivious Neversleep to comb the ranks of his contingent for wargs, and out of nearly three thousand men there were as many as four Skinchangers amongst them. Quite many, comparatively. Only amongst the mountain clans, the Bear Island levy, the Umber men and the Starks themselves was there more of them. Most often it was as little as one or two men on a thousand.
"Riler's bonded a wolf, an evil thing from the Stark bitch's pet pack" Cutter went on as ordered, having raised all four of the men in question to the Red Riders the night before to keep them close, under a watchful eye where they could be useful. "Tanner's got a hound, two of the big bastards even, and a cat from Sarsfield of all things. And Dahn's got an owl. A snowy owl. I've no bloody reckoning where he got it from, but it's one noisy fucking beast at night".
"Tell Krem he can go slit someone else's throat if the shrieks bother him – the Wargs are not to be harmed". The requirement to ride with the Red Ones, the Red Riders that had kept the tradition since the Red Kings of the Dreadfort, were stringent. Martial prowess, brutality and loyalty in equal measures was needed. "Does anyone of them know how recognise other Skinchangers on sight?" Lyra Mormont and the Stark bastard, Jon, seemed to be able to, though he was uncertain. Too much was unknown about this skill of theirs. But it was useful. And Roose was loath to throw away a perfectly good blade just because he didn't know how it had been forged.
"Tanner says he can. Says he can smell it, so he does". He paused and seemed hesitant, to which Roose waved him on, telling him to get his question off his chest. "He says that he's smelled it on 'is bairns too, m'Lord. He just didn't know t'was Warging. He's got four of them, two lads and two lasses, all smelling like that supposedly. I thought you'd want to know, is all, m'Lord".
"Good thinking, Cutter. This is why you are captain". That, and he the fact that he had put an axe through the head of the previous captain. Such tended to be the way with the Red Riders. "Tell Tanner I'm moving his family into the Dreadfort. I'm taking his children into my service, all of them". Roose pondered it for a second before he made up his mind, thinking of the fact that those children, and the Stark children, were all Skinchangers. It seemed to follow the blood.
"Also, take four of the camp harlots aside. Do not touch them. Wash them, dress them, send them to Tanner, Dahn, Riler and Slink. Tell them to pick one to warm his blanket for the rest of the war. No other man is allowed to touch them. Pay the whores handsomely". Cutter nodded and saluted, though Roose wasn't quite done yet. "Also, tell the whores that if anyone of them drinks moontea, all of them will lose their heads". He said no more, and Cutter bowed in the saddle and rode back to his men, telling his second, Krem, to take over while he saw to the other matters.
The Starks had ruled in the North for eight thousand years, by law and creed and blood. And their skin changing magic, he realised now. Was it any surprise that they had come to rule the North? What other sorcery did they hide, these Starks? If he took the skin of one, made his face to it, could he too walk in the mind and shape of a beast? Too many questions, too many things unknown, unanswered. He knew not enough. Better keep the Stark girl close to him until he knew what it all meant.
Roose, apart from his soldiers, rode alone most of the rest of the long way north towards the Banefort, his thoughts filled with magic and sorcery.
And visions of a future he was starting to think that Ramsey was unequipped to rule over.
Robb
Two days after they took Greenfield he discovered that getting shot by arrows hurt. A lot.
"Stop squirming, you big bairn" Jon held him down by the other shoulder as Ebbert stood over him where he sat at the table of his command tent, the former Maester hard at work at stitching at the wound in his shoulder. Smalljon, commanding his personal honour guard and thus with the flying column of his own cavalry, watched it from one side, his face red with rage. Royce and Dacey stood beside him, neither of them looking any happier, while Arya was off on the corner, sitting on table with crossed legs as she sharpened one of her knives. As Ebbert worked the thread as expertly as a master seamstress without any fingers, eyes or pride in her work Robb bared his teeth against the pain and looked squarely at the two men that stood before him.
"Do you understand why I have been doing well in this war so far, Lord Condon, Lord Bulwer?" he asked, the concoction that had given him making his vision blurr and the details of his tent vague at best, his mind slipping easier to other matters. "Do you?" At his tone no one spoke even as Edric walked from soldier to soldier in there with a pitcher of wine and a selection of cups. Robb wasn't allowed any. Ebbert had told him that drinking that and that foul concoction both could lead to lethal results. "No? Allow Maester Robb to educate youse all!"
"I hate it when you get like this" Jon muttered over his shoulder, unfazed as bloody always. Didn't he know that they had just suffered a defeat? That he had? That he, Robb-bloody-Stark, had been bested by a fucking wall? "You're insufferable".
"Shut your gob, brother" he muttered aside before he went on, lifting the one of his arms that didn't feel like it had been set on fire to drink from the contents of his cup, contents that smelled like rotting moss and dead snails. "Since this war began we've been outnumbered. Surrounded. In hostile lands, fighting an enemy much better supplied than us. Somehow, we have survived. Because of three things". He held up one hand, raising one finger. "Firstly, speed. Secondly, pikes. Thirdly" he drove his fist down on the armrest of his chair with a thud "people following the bloody orders they've been given!"
"Your Grace" Kyle Condon opened his mouth to Robb's further bevexment, startled by the anger shown, out of character for Robb as he had been when Condon had first met him in his youth. But he had been shot in the shoulder and robbed of victory by the stupidity of his own men. He was bound to be at least a little peeved. "It was never my intention to bring you in harm's way. I beg the profoundest of pardons. Please, I beg of thee, have clemency on me and my family".
"I-" he bared his teeth against the pain, his thoughts unfocused and dispersed. Like leaf on the sodding wind, each slipping out of his hands as he reached out to catch them. A true King knows restraint. No better than Joffrey. "Don't. You have two grown sons – they will ride in my honour guard from now on. Maybe that will teach your House the importance on holding to the sodding battle plans. That'll be punishment enough. You both" he looked to Roren in turn "stood in this very tent last night. Both of you heard the plan. Edric!" he barked, and the Boy Lord of Starfall jumped, startled. "Tell the stratagem back to them, will you?"
Lord Dayne, clever as he was, adapted quickly. "At your command, Sire. While the rest of the army hid in the forests and the hills beyond the view of the buttresses of the walls" he recited back easily "Lord Condon's men, led by him, would ride out close to the wall, like a raiding party made too brave, chanting songs about killing Lannisters. The defenders would sally out, and they would fall back, baiting the defenders to pursue. They would lead them up into the hills, where your army would surround them and crush them. Returning to the city and marshalling the troops as if to attack it, Lord Serret would surrender, having too few men left to hold the walls with".
"But the Westermen sallied out, and what did you do, Lord Condon?" Robb asked, bent on answering it himself. "You charged them! Head on! Honour and Glory like a sodding Southron, inside the range of their archers! Well, that was workable for the plan. There were far fewer of you than of them. After an unnecessary loss of lives you would be made to retreat anyway, and they would pursue. The plan would be salvaged, if barely. But then you" he looked to Neversleep, his skin crawling with green "you decided to be oh so bloody noble".
"I shan't ask of any pardons for it, your Grace" Roren intoned back at him, his voice as wickedly distant as it had been ever since he had been inducted into the Green Men on the Isle of Faces. Because that was what had happened. Apparently. Robb hadn't been able to tell, what with the utterly demented visions and all. "Men were dying. Faithful men. I could not sit idly by and watch them-"
"Winter is Coming, Roren, and fools either die in the snow or empty everyone else's larders". Gods, he hoped that wouldn't become a saying. "So you ordered the Weirwood Riders to charge. Felicitations, priest. You only managed to put your own force in the way of the arrows of the defenders. We have no siege weapons! Thatäs the reason we're not attacking Casterly Rock itself! What could we possibly gain by charging the bloody walls?!" With his free hand he reached up to rub his eyes as Ebbert and Jon stepped away from him, their needlework done. Thank the Gods. "Luckily the other contingents of the army stayed put and followed orders when I charged in to save your sorry arses. We fought back the sally, the defenders got back in behind their walls, and some Lannister archer shot me in the sodding shoulder!"
"Your Grace" Jon pointed out after a long moment of pressured silence tense to the point of breaking. "It wasn't an archer, it was a crossbowman. And he had a Serrett tabard on". Jon had been at his side, holding him up in the saddle and taking Armstark's reins when the quarrel struck him through the shoulder on his right side and made the sword tumble from his hand. Pissed off as he was, and in a deeply drunken state by the Maester's concoction, he still knew that he would have fallen to the ground and been trampled underhoof by the horses had Jon not been there.
"Aye, so he had" Robb let out another sigh and put his rubbing hand down, giving the rough stitching on his shoulder a sneer of a look. It would scar viciously, but all the good surgeons and healers seemed to have gone to other wings of the army, going with other lords. Had he paid them poorly? Was that it? "If you had followed orders, my Lords, I would have been on a ship south along the river to Goldengrove by now, setting off to see Summer-Sun Flo- I mean Maegaery. Instead I'm here, in camp just outside Silverhill, with a sodding hole in my shoulder!"
The cold knows no mercy. Gods, he was so angry. No better than Joffrey.
"Roren, Lord Kyle - you may leave us. Go to your men and thank the Gods that the sallying force retreated back behind their gates before they took your heads and your banners. You are dismissed". They bowed and went towards the exit, leaving shortly once Smalljon had done his customary stare-down. He didn't blame the troops of either man for the faults of their commanders. Roren's riders especially.
Men broke their oaths to both lord and land to paint the Weirwoods on their shields and join his band of fighters, knights and infantrymen on stolen horses both, taking all who professed themselves to be faithful. They had been growing in number daily before the armies parted to set forth and conquer, one man or woman in ten amongst them Wargs and Skinchangers. When the armies made camp and lit their fires for the night Roren would stand before whatever Weirwood or hearttree he could find and summoned the attention of soldiers and camp followers with fiery sermons. Speechs about the Gods, about the Children, about the First Men, about the shackles of the Seven and the Seven Pointed Star and the "false histories" of the Maesters and the Southron courts.
A wellspring of speech, considering the man was Southron himself. Then again, the Green Men had inducted him into their ranks. Perhaps that had burned away everything else in him. The Old Gods had no clergy, but the Green Men were the closest to that there was, tending to the Weirwoods. For thousands of years there had been none of them in the North. They hadn't been needed.
But magic was returning to the world, and the times were changing. They were eager men, the Raiders. And eagerness was something rarely seen in any other than fresh troops a year through a long and bloody war.
He had to admit that summoning Neversleep to his side for something else than squabbles and brawls between the faithful Riverlanders and Weirwood Riders was a refreshing thing. Jon had said it the best one time just before they took Sarsfield: "It's only a matter of time before someone gets stabbed in the name of the Gods". Robb was unsure of what powers had sent the vision on that first night at the old keep in the Whispering Wood, if it had been the Gods or merely the voices and the souls of the Children, the memories of the dead trapped in the Weirwoods. Or if there had ever been a difference between any it. But he wasn't about to be as fanatical about the minor details of religious dogma. So what if his Gods were the only ones with true power in the world? The Southrons could worship the Star or the sky or the sodding mountains for all he cared. Whatever songs they wrote or words they spoke -
A thought occurred to him, and despite the pain in his arm he smirked. "Maybe we won't have to siege down the walls. We can do it much quicker, and not lose another man". They all looked at him, confused and hopeful both. He was their King. They all leaned on him, relied on him to rule and conquer all his enemies. "Dacey, take on of the spare command tents off the wagons. One of the grey ones. Erect it as a pavilion just outside the reach of their crossbows. Banners, servants, all of the pomp and circumstance we can muster".
"By your word, my King" she bowed and left the tent in a flurry of her green Bear Island cloak of fur. She was ever faithful, Dacey. He had no ken of why Lady Mormont would rather have her second youngest daughter Alysane succeed her as Lady of Bear Island instead.
"Royce, get your armour on. Have your squire polish it until you outshine the sun itself. Take Smalljon's giant horse and ride to the gate of Silverhill under a flag of truce. Proclaim that I would speak with Lord Serrett. At sundown today. Speak humbly. It is of paramount importance that the Lord himself comes out to treat". Royce saluted and bowed in the manner of Valemen as he turned to leaf, and Robb looked to Edric and the other squire, one of the Mallister boys. "Fetch me musicians from the camp. Lute, flute, drum and harp. Have Rymund lead them. Tell them to install themselves at the pavilion as soon as they may and harmonise quick as they may".
"Your Grace!" the boys jumped to obey, and in turn Robb ordered all the rest of them around until only Jon, Ebbert and Smalljon were left. The Umber heir in particular seemed to be of a pensive mood. "He might as well borrow my horse. It's the biggest bloody one around. But about Condon and Neversleep - were you not overly kind, your Grace?"
"As to what, Smallhon? Making an enemy out of the leader of rapid worshipers and breeding resentment out of my own heartland levy?" He shook his head and looked to his younger brother. "Now, you might not know this, but these two" he gestured to Smalljon and Ebbert "are the ones keeping watch on my network of spies".
Jon was taken aback at the news, as were the two, glancing at each other from out of the corners of their eyes, instantly wary. "That's-" Jon began, frowning like he always did. "That's not very like you. Or Father. He never had spies, or anything like the sort of-"
"You don't need to remind me, Jon. But Father died for his honour. If I fall, so does the North. I don't intend to get me head lopped off by Lannisters anytime soon". Well, there really was no need to be so serious about it. "Also, I have about three. In total. Nothing compared to the legions of King's Landing and the Lannisters".
"Then we are to share our findings with each other, all of us?" Ebbert seemed apprehensive, doubtful. Then again, maybe he was just hungry. Robb thought that it was hard to tell. Was the tent made out of faces? "With all due respect and fealty, your Grace, but wouldn't it be better if we waited until you have weathered the more illusory elements of the drink I gave you? It is made to match the prowess of Milk of the Poppy, but is made from several fey and poisonous ingredients. One should be cautious when-"
"Fie on caution! War is won through knowledge. Why do you think I have Lyra and Jon be more within their animal skins than without? Scouting, screening, knowing the enemy, that is the key to fighting him. That, and a long sodding pike. Smalljon" he looked solely at the Umber heir. "You begin".
"I got messages from Goldengrove and our man in Highgarden both" Smalljon began as bid, though he did so warily, glancing at Ebbert from out of the corner of his eye. "The one in Highgarden is little more than an upjumped fur-monger. His latest missive says he's managed to weasel his way into the colonnades now, that he's under the wing of some Southron noblewoman with a fancy for Northern men and Northern clothes. A passing fancy, he says, nothing more. But as long as they swoon and think to tend the prime bulls there's no need to look the gifted cattle in the mouths".
"You've a spy in Highgarden?" Ebbert asked, and Smalljon looked over to him fully, looking more down than aside given his giant stature, and nodded at him in an almost nonchalant manner before he turned back towards his king.
"Aye. He says the boys Redwyne have been returned to the court". Robb arched an eyebrow and traded looks with Jon before Smalljon raised his hands. "I ken. Not much thus far, but here's what I know, and the implications of it. See, those two, Lord Paxter of the Arbor's lads, are supposed to be squiring in King's Landing. They were returned to the Reach a week ago, with no pomp at all. All secret like. My man only found out because he was" he smirked and scoffed "entertained one of the maids that tended their chambers".
Robb narrowed his eyes and held up his good hand, the numbness burning around the pain in his shoulder. "Get to the point, Umber. Why is this important?"
"The Redwyne twins were hostages of the Lannisters, your Grace. Outspoken or not, so t'was. Moreover, they returned to Highgarden as the same time as the Dornish embassy arrived". Robb frowned at that, and Ebbert looked all but confused, though Jon didn't seem to understand the significance. "Some lot of them. Led by Lord Paramount Doran's brother, of all things".
"Prince" Ebbert corrected, and Smalljon gave him a dark look. "The Dornish don't have Lords paramount, not in their own culture. Or kings. They have Princes. Prince Oberyn, then – sent by his brother no doubt. Who else?"
"Oh, some lot of them" Smalljon shrugged. "A couple of lasses who are apparently snakes, one bloke named Cletus – stupid sodding name, that – Lady Larra Blackmont and some children, one Daeron… Vaith, I think it's pronounced like that anyway, and lastly some fuck calling himself Darkstar". He scoffed again, shaking his head wryly. "Southrons. Pompous fuckers, the lot of them".
"The Martells and the Tyrells don't get along, your Grace" Ebbert informed helpfully from aside, as Robb had little inkling on why this was important, especially in his current state. "Never had, historically, and especially not since after Oberyn Martell crippled Lord Willas. They wouldn't have gone to Highgarden without reason, War of the Five Kings be damned. Given this, we must assume one of two things; either Willas Tyrell's web of spies and agents spreads all the way to Dorne, helping him in his plans against the Lannisters in King's Landing-"
"Or the Dornish know of our plans to ally with the Tyrells and intend to work against it" Robb finished for the former Maester, his thoughts struggling through the fog within his mind. "Or for it. Or with it. Bloody shadow work this, rings within rings and games within games". He bared his teeth and pushed something out of the side of his eye, some muck that stung something fierce. "Best to err on the side of caution and think the Dornish want my head too. Let them come and try their best. My family had held Winterfell for seven thousand years before their great Nymeria was even born. Let's see how much their desert sun warms them when Winter comes".
"The King in the North" they said as one, Smalljon grinning so broadly that for an instant he looked to be the spitting image of his father. Robb heard Arya say it too, from her corner half-forgotten. A faint sound, but it was there. "Ebbert" he nodded and held back a smile "your turn".
"In regards to my efforts in Oldtown and the Citadel" he began, glancing sideways at Smalljon "I've made some headway. Mostly into the Citadel as a whole. I've traded some letters with Archmaester Marwyn, but I think he believes me to be an agent for the faction opposed to his. He is a shrewd man despite his countenance, and suspicious. I've made better progress with some of his apprentices and the Maesters surrounding him. In time I might convince him to trust me. Still, he's reluctant to share anything in regards to the nature of the Glass Candles". He noticed Jon's and Smalljon's confused looks and made to explain. "Magical cylinders made out of-"
"Sorcery bollocks" Robb cut that part of the expounding short. "Enough said on that for now. Smalljon, your woman in Goldengrove. Does she have anything for us? Word from there has been-"
"Lost in the bustle of the war, it seems" Smalljon informed, and Robb felt himself begin to scowl. "Apparently there have been messages coming from there to us, but with the camp moving it hasn't been able to keep up too well. Anyways, only a few things worth noting. Lord Mace Tyrell is doubtful about the soundness of his daughter's plan, and Olenna Redwyne, your sweetheart's grandmother, came there with Mace and the second Tyrell boy, Willas. Along with her mother. Oh, and one more thing". He, once more, began to smirk. "Royce's gallivanting in the sept? Apparently he's gone and made a child on one of Margaery's handmaidens doing that. Serves the pompous sod right in my mind, but-" he saw Robb's expression and smothered his mirth. "Alyce Graceford, your Grace".
"Oh, bugger – that's a bite in the arse". That was the thing, wasn't it? The ones who spoke the loudest about duty and honour were the ones most prone to breaking against both of those things. "He's going to be the better man. Or at least I bloody well hope he'll be. Both of you, find out what you can about the girl's House and kin. I'll tell him after we've taken Silverhill. One thing to worry about at a time. Meanwhile, strive to expand your network of agents. Reach out to kinsmen, bannermen, friends to your families and yourselves. We'll make arrangements better once Silverhill is ours and we're on the boat downriver to Goldengrove".
"We'll do our best, your Grace" Smalljon bowed, surprisingly graceful for a man his size and stature, his hand by his hip on the pommel of a sword that wasn't there.
"See to it, both of you. Jon, stay". Ebbert bowed a little slower than Smalljon, giving Robb a lingering concerned look, but Robb made a soft gesture with his hand and dismissed him again. He was fine. The whispers in the back of his mind were muffled, drowned out by the concoction, and he had his family with him. The Direwolves were off elsewhere, Grey Wind licking the wounds he had sustained during the impromptu assault on the Silverhill walls. "As you know" he began when he and Jon, and Arya, were alone in the tent once more "I placed Owen in command of the Golden Tooth. He's the only one who's done actual bloody mining that I can trust with my life. He's been told to hold the place should our plans fall to shite, and to obey only the King in the North should I-"
"The bloody Others take us all, Robb, is that what this is about?!" Jon's dark eyes shot open as he realised what he was getting at even as he slowly and meticulously shrugged a shirt over his head. "You've got one bolt through the arm, and suddenly you're making preparations in case you die? What kind of bloody fearful cowardice of caution is this?! You're not going to die!"
"Anyone can die" Arya whispered in the corner, too low for Jon to hear from where he was standing, and Robb nodded quietly to himself. She was right. And it wasn't simply a matter of "can": it was a matter of "will". Death came for everyone in the end, except for those who lost themselves another way, within the Weirwoods and the minds of their enslaved beasts. Sorcery didn't ward against that, at least. Or perhaps it did. It did wake the dead.
Gods, so many things unknown and unanswered. "Now, there's an order of succession" he ignored his brother's protests and went on undeterred. "If I die, I've sent word to Rickon and Bran. You're to succeed me, and they are to stand behind you in that, not split off on their own claims. If you don't want the crown, put it to one of them, but make sure that you are all in agreement with each other. I don't want my kingdom to fall apart after my death, scarcely half-made up and unformed, because some lord got it in his head to crown another Stark boy. I want my works to be finished, Jon. Father avenged. Our people free. No matter if I'm there or not".
"This is why you had me in on their- their clandestine meeting, isn't it?" Jon questioned, anger flashing in his eyes as he stared across the table at him as Robb moved around it, looking for his cloak and his sword. "To have me learn spycraft? Statecraft? Well, let me tell you this, brother – you are this kingdom. The King in the North. It's too new, too fresh. If you fall, the dream will shatter and the South will come to take it all back. No matter what I do I won't be able to stop that. Don't make any plans on-"
"Jon, I may not have a choice" he reached down into his packing, a large wooden chest toted from camp to camp with some of his things in it. Had he put his sword in there? No, that was right, he had dropped it in the battle under the walls. Blast. Now he had to get a new one. "Fortune changes, and sometimes the Gods are fickle. The next bolt might go through my eye. I won't let what I've built thus far crumble. It might not be much yet, but it is mine. Ours. Our ways. Our freedom".
"Freedom can go shove itself, Robb – family matters more to me". Robb looked around to meet his brother's gaze, only to be affixed by the intensity of his stare. "You gave me everything I ever wanted. A name, honour, lands of my own. I swore by the Gods I'd die for you. And I swear this – if either of us is to die, I go to join the Gods and the Ancestors first. Curse me, I wouldn't be able to look Father in the eye otherwise".
"Jon-" Robb looked back, his hand squeezed hard in a skeletal fist. Words failed him, and in furious impotence he lifted his hand to rub at his eyes with his knuckle, the agony of that first vision from long ago lingering in them, having never truly gone away. "I just don't want this to fail. To be for nothing".
"Only our enemies want that" Jon agreed with a nod at last, the tension stretching between them like a bowstring onto the point of breaking. "Will you tell me what you have planned now, at least? With the palanquin and the parley?"
"Remember that time we went hunting as boys, out in the edge of the Wolfswood? That one time when Jory Cassel took us because the huntmaster was off elsewhere? The one with the bear?" Jon thought on it a few moments before he nodded. "Aye, like that – but swords instead of shouting. Don't act unless I tell you to, but see it done. Aye?"
"Aye" Jon nodded back breathing out hard through pursed lips. "You are certain you can do this? That you can keep your mind straight? Because of your shoulder and all-"
"I've killed much too many men to let a sodding hole in my shoulder hold me back" he grunted and reached around for a shirt, or at least something to cover himself with. "Or the damn concoction Ebbert gave me. See to the works allotted, would you?"
"Aye" Jon bowed in an almost mocking fashion, or it would have been had it not been sincere beyond the power of mere words to convey. "Your will be done, my king. Always". He stood straight and headed for the flaps of the tent, pausing in the entrance to look back at him over his shoulder. Robb saw him smile. "The King in the North".
"Aye" Robb whispered into the silence once Jon was gone. "King in the bloody North". Silent now, except for the throbbing down his arm. Quiet, and lonely.
"Did you forget about me?" Arya had been quiet in the background of the tent for hours now, moving from dagger to dagger in the sharpening as she had watched over Ebbert tending to his wound. She didn't trust any of them, Robb noted, and why should she? After all she had seen, trust was no doubt something hard gained for her. Reserved for family. And only some members of her family at that.
He doubted that after everything that had happened between the two sisters she had any love for Sansa left in her heart.
"Of course I didn't" he told her as he looked around back at her while she put all her knives back away onto her person – one each in the sides of her new high-shafted riding boots, the others in her belt and once strapped to the leather vambrace of her off-hand sleeve – before she made a high jump off the table and landed with both feet on the ground with feline grace. "I always know you're there. You and Jon both, especially when Grey Wind, Nym or Ghost are close by. And the same goes for you as it does for Jon, Arya. 'If I shall die tomorrow, promise you'll speak of me, over my pyre'-"
"-'that you died a mighty hero, with your face towards the fire'?" she finished for him, cocking her head to the side, her hair falling dark before her eyes. She had allowed Jon to cut it, trim the jagged strands that crowned her head until it didn't look quite so choppy anymore. It would grow out in time, and she had already bound the hair on the top of her pate back while she let the rest hang loose. Stark fashion that, the way Father had worn it. Like how Jon and Robb now wore it, too. "I've heard the stupid ballad too. And no. When you die your bones are to be brought back to Winterfell".
"Like Father's should be". Still the remains of Eddard Stark and Ice, the ancestral blade of their family, remained in King's Landing. In the hands of the Lannisters. He felt the rage rise within him again at the mere thought of it, as familiar as the inside of his own heart to him. And just as full of warmth.
She knew how the anger came over him, and, bless her heart, she understood, turning his thoughts to other paths. "I won't become Lord of Winterfell, Robb. Girl, remember? Means that you, Jon, Bran, Rickon, uncle Benjen and Sansa are ahead of me. It's not fair, I bloody well know, but-"
"Whomsoever first made up the rules that said that girls weren't allowed to inherit as boys was a complete arse, aye?" he asked her as he glanced back at his map, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips as he remembered something. "I promised I'd give a Lordship and five hundred gold dragons to whomever brought you back to us, safe and sound. But you brought yourself back. Should have known that you never needed anyone to safe you, not when you've gotten this dangerous. The question is, what do you want me to-?"
"I want the Lordship" she told him plainly, no hesitation at all on her voice. He looked her over and thought on it. She certainly looked lordly enough now, dressed like a little lordling in dark woollen trousers, a white linen tunic striped in grey, a fencer's quilted vest and her new high boots. If not for the fine cast to her features and her voice's pitch anyone could have assumed she was a boy. Highborn, every inch of her. She had dirtied her clothes already, but that was expected of her. Unlike Mother and Father, he had no inkling to forcing her into bustled she didn't want to wear. "And not a shite one, neither!"
"Of course you do" he nodded. Again, nothing that he hadn't been expecting from her. Not the old her, and not the new her either. "But all I've got on hand are shite ones. Well, except for the Golden Tooth. I intent to keep the bloody thing. Recompense for all my troubles, that. You happen to know anything about mining, do you?" She stared up at him, grey eyes blinking. "Thought not. How about the Wolf's Den? It's on the mouth of the White Knife, and the Manderley's have passed the succession rights onto me. I could make you the heiress to the Lordship of-"
"No boys" she stated firmly, the words coming out of her more than just a little juvenile. "I mean, I don't think it's fair. I mean, if it's mine, shouldn't it be mine by right? As, I mean, inheritance and whatnot and- and I don't want it stolen away by some boy if-"
"Arya Stark" Robb cleared his voice and spoke up, the tone of his voice made as if to address his people in a matter of state. "For the service you did myself and my kin by saving yourself, and for being the fiercest young woman alive in the world, I bequeath onto you the Lordship of the Wolf's Den. Henceforth it shall be a Ladyship, and it shall pass, along with your name, to your daughters, and your daughters' daughters, along the female line of your descendants. To tend and protect, to steward over in my royal name and the name of my House, from this time onto the end of time".
She stared back up at him, her face as impassive and cold as the towers of Winterfell. "Those are just words" she protested at last. "I mean, you can say them all you like, but unless you do it in front of people they don't really matter, do they?"
"I'll send the message to Maester Luwin, tell him to put your name down and draw up something stately looking" he tried as well as he could to seem cocky, to seem sure of himself. "And I'll send word to Lord Manderly. If he's wont to let holdings in his Lordship pass to a woman he can go suck on a salty sausage. I've handed his son pillaging rights to Fairisle. He shouldn't bark overly much".
In face of his good humours she stood impassive, blinking up at him. He thought he saw something in her eyes, something familiar and close. Something like the Arya he had used to know. "I want to-" she said, something choked on her voice, before she changed her mind. "You're good at this. Being king, and all. I didn't think you were going to be. Honest!" she exclaimed once she saw the expression that he made. "I mean, I never thought about it even. But you're good at it. I've seen other armies, Robb. Evil men, needing only knives. Names. You keep them good, Robb".
"I keep them on a tight leash. I don't fool myself – I know what would have happened if I set all of them loose on the Riverlands. Leechlord Roose and some of the others makes Amory Lorch and the Mountain seem like half-measures". He reached up to rub his eye, stopping only when he felt the stinging pain therein. "And yet now I've let them slip their bounds, to burn all the Westerlands. As revengeance for the sacking of the Riverlands. The innocent will die for the faults of their lords and masters and the soldiers that fought for them. North, South, east or west – the Smallfolk get buggered as we wage our lordly wars".
"Such it is" Arya shrugged, visibly uncaring, and Robb searched her eyes for any shred of mercy living there, finding none but the cold and the swiftness of the silent blade. "But it's better than the rest, isn't it? Most don't even care. Five kings in this war, and four out of five are shite. Not you, Robb". Slowly, frowning at herself, she reached out for his hand, taking his forefinger and his middle finger in a soft grip from below, looking up at him with her grey Stark eyes. "You're not like the others. Not yet, anyway. Whatever it is you have, what Father had, the thing Jon and I- – don't lose it. Promise you won't, will you? No matter what anyone says". Forsake honour. Winter is coming, little king. And the Cold knows no mercy.
"I promise I won't become a tyrant, that I'll always care" he nodded to her in all the severity he could muster before he closed his eyes and collected himself. "Now, Lady of Wolf's Den, I've got to wash my face and find my crown. And a sword. You go on after Jon. See if you can't frighten a few people". She opened her mouth and drew in breath to speak, but he knew what she was going to ask about. "We'll speak about your desire to be Bolton's squire when we're on the ship southwards. Well" he jerked his head at the entrance of the tent. "Off you go. Aye?"
"Ye- aye" she replied and headed off, leaving him alone in the tent at last. And with the herbs of Ebberts potion clouding his thoughts, making the whispers fade into the far recesses of his mind along with the link to Grey Wind, he could, for the first time in what felt like an age, be truly alone.
Honestly, he didn't care for it much.
His power leaving him he sank back down on his chair with a forced-out sigh through bared teeth. One bloody moment of respite – that was all he asked for. One moment when everyone wasn't pulling at him to do his duty or lead a war or avenge the wrongs of his family. To lay down his weapons and his crown and fall back into a soft embrace. To sleep on a bed of roses, surrounded by her scent.
"Gods, I miss her" he whispered to the empty air around him, no one but him listening. "Won't be long now". He comforted himself with that thought. Soon he'd see her again.
Soon.
Lord Serrett was not a physically impressive man. Aging yet surviving as he had, he had been of age with the late Lord Jon Arryn of the Vale, Robb's brother's namesake. Few of that generation remained in power throughout the realm savaged by the War of the Usurper and before that by the War of the Ninepenny Kings. So many battles and revolts – and they wondered why he wanted the North separate from the rest of the continent.
At sunset the man left the gates of Silverhill with a following of knights and bannermen, riding under the banner of the Serrett peacock on a cream-coloured field, ever so resplendent in his fine armour: an armour made to fit him in his youth, not as he was now. Robb met the man at the tent placed at their convenience on the open field before the walls and dry moat of Silverhill, the banners of House Stark surrounding it on all sides along with his own personal levy, troops led by Jon. As he greeted the man as befitted a lord, far more than the Westerlander swine deserved, he quietly signalled his brother, who in silence proceeded to surround the Serrett men with his own.
Within the tent, with a few close guards and Arya at his side he held parley with Lord Serrett as the musicians, led by Rymund with his harp and his iron gaze, played to entertain them as Edric served them wine. True Southron curtesy. Serrett hadn't been expecting that.
Which had been Robb's intention all along. For the longest time they spoke of idle things, about the ships still in the Silverhill harbour and the run of the river south, about trade and the harvest and the times. Lord Serrett was certainly not physically imposing, but he seemed a shrewd man, clever enough to know to bow when circumstance had forced him into a corner by sword point. He was, however, slighty set in his ways and his notions on how the world functioned, as most tended to be when growing old.
Which was why it so surprised him, and all the others in the tent, when Robb asked the musicians to play the Rains of Castamere to them. He even sang along with it for a little bit.
"-now the rains weep o'er his hall, and not a soul to hear" he went along with the last few notes as they faded away onto the coldness of the falling night before he looked onto Lord Serrett, with his pattern baldness and thin arms, profoundly unsettled, before he gave him a smile that would have made Greatjon proud. "They are powerful, the Lannisters. Wealthy, great in number, led by a man who all but ruled the Seven Kingdoms for the last three decades under two different kings. It will not be easy, Lord Serrett" he had assured him "but I will kill the Lannister lion. I will hang Tywin Lannister's head from the saddle of my horse. I will have his Kingslayer son's and his incestuous daughter's skulls sowed into the furrows I leave behind when I burn Lannisport to the ground. I will tear Casterly Rock down stone by stone until there is nothing left of them to weep over. I will end their line and their House. These are not idle threats. These are things that I will do".
These are mummery. A farce merely. But it had the desired effect. Once he had made it clear that there would be no revengence from the Lannisters, with there not being any Lannisters left in power after the war was ended, and that Silverhill would not be pillaged nor mistreated should he surrender, Lord Serrett was quick to submit. Luckily enough for him. Jon had all but stripped all his men of their swords already. If he hadn't bowed his head and let himself be cowed he would have been held hostage against the commanders of the city defenders.
The only ones who suffered in the occupation of Silverhill were the owners of the individual ships in the harbour. All of them, from the smallest vessels as fishing boats to the solitary dromond amongst the lot, were claimed by right of conquest by House Stark. That dromond led the small navy south the very next day, ships filled to the brim with Robb's contingent of the Northern army. Rich as it was, he had no intention of doing anything more than claim the lion's share of the city's wealth. He had no wish to rule over Westermen or Westerland holdings.
With Arya and Jon, the latter almost green in the face, he stood at the forecastle of that great ship and faced south that morning as the sun rose over their heads. They were headed due South, for Margaery and Mother. Within a few days travel downstream they'd be there.
He didn't know if it was a trick of the light, but he thought that he could see Arya smile.
END
A/N: This chapter seemed as easy to write as the last one at first, but the latter parts of it dragged on a bit. However, the next chapter is almost complete already. You won't have to wait long for Margaery's triumphant return into the centre spotlight of this story.
This chapter was intent on asking two questions – how does Robb deal with failure in the field, and how does the other Northern lords deal with and think about the sudden increase in the number of Skinchangers around. Also, setting up some later parts of the story.
Lastly - I got a review for the last chapter that was in Spanish. Honestly, my Russian is better than my Spanish, though I think the reviewer asked me to provide some Roose POV. Maybe. Or maybe it just asked me to think about Roose in a more amorous way. This, dear reader, is for you in particular. And also for the rest of you. ;-)
Believe me when I say that we're just getting started. I hope you'll like it. The best is yet to come.
Ta.