It was a dark and dingy hole that he awoke to. Torches on the cave walls offered the sole meaningful source of light, though in the distance he could see what must be an opening, an earthen ramp leading out into the outside world. He made to rise but a searing pain in his chest sent him hurtling back; even if he hadn't his stirring caused a minor commotion and saw a rugged one-eyed man push him back down and restrain him until he ceased resisting. The rugged man stroked his bald head with something approaching tenderness and regarded him curiously, standing as he muttered.
"What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."
Frey replaced the rugged man, standing over him with a wry challenge of a smile. The Blackfish frowned and looked about, though it hurt to do so. Old men, young men, broken men and outlaws the lot. Scum, he'd have called them, if he had the energy. Even looking hurt, and he fell back defeated and betrayed by his own decrepit body.
A silence followed - and when it ended he couldn't be quite sure whether he'd fallen asleep again or just shut his eyes a few seconds.
"Don't you want to know what happened?" teased Frey, sitting at the side of his bed, laying a rough and unwanted hand just south of the pain in his chest.
He knew the voice, and the accursed face that spoke it. Aegon Bloodborn was the firstborn of Ser Aenys Frey, a son of the late Lord Frey known for being both cruel and clever. Brynden neither knew nor cared where the son had obtained the name, but what he did know was disagreeable enough. His own brother had declared the man an outlaw when he broke the King's Peace, years before, and becoming his prisoner was a prospect only slightly more inviting than falling into Lannister hands. By every account the son had inherited his father's bad blood, though time proved him unable to imitate the more cunning of his kin and avoid the detection of his crimes. Brynden had known him briefly as a lad, squiring for Dafyn Vance. The Bloodborn was still unknighted when he had incurred Hoster's wrath and committed crimes heinous enough that Riverrun should preoccupy itself with a ruling regarding him, branding him outlaw and commanding all good and honest subjects to see to his immediate arrest. Aegon had been accordingly surprised and captured, only to escape his captors under mysterious circumstances and vanish into the country.
Thereafter Walder and his kin had feigned ignorance of the lad's whereabouts. Hoster was already old then, and Brynden was far away - too far away to do anything about it. By the time he learnt of the story he was employed in the Vale and honour-bound to attend the cares of House Arryn, not House Tully. Aegon and the gaggle of hangers-on he surrounded himself with had done little by way of real nuisance, and for a time it was thought he had quit the Riverlands altogether and gone across the sea to ply his sword in the Free Cities. Whatever his exploits the winds of war had now blown him back across the Riverlands to a life of thievery and dishonesty, by which means he ingratiated himself with the smallfolk and continued to evade the death the law imposed on him.
If he had the strength, the Blackfish would have imposed his brother's justice one last time, grabbed the wretch by the throat and rammed the scarce piss-stained bedsheets about him down the Bloodborn's throat. It would not be the death he had wished for, but it'd be satisfaction enough at this juncture. He would have rallied his last strength and lunged, he swore, were it not for the girl. The girl had no blame in all this foul business, and he was her sole shield now.
As if reading his thoughts, the Bloodborn smiled and began. "You want to know what happened to the Lady Jeyne? Queen Jeyne, rather?"
The Blackfish sneered but the Bloodborn seemed unperturbed, gingerly resting his hand on the Blackfish's thigh and making himself comfortable on the bed, wriggling his bottom like a suckling child taking a happy seat beside his darling mother. The Bloodborn did not have to look back or say so much as a word to his men for them to clear out, shuffling away into the shadows and behind flickering flame, out into the open or down into passages unseen. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind for a minute. He and the girl were caught. He had mocked the Freys at Riverrun and slipped through their fingers only to fall into the grasp of their kinsman. What chance the man would allow him any window for escape? The girl was dead or sorely abused by now, he wagered, and whatever dwindling hope they had harboured for Tully and Stark would die with them before the day was out.
"Riverrun is...fallen, yes, and bestowed upon House Frey, for this and all generations to come. The King-"
"Fuck your king!" the Blackfish sputtered, mustering all his strength for this last flurry of Tully pride and defiance. "The Riverlands knows no King but the King of the Trident, whose name is Stark!"
The Bloodborn smirked, as if humoured by the show of defiance, the almost petulant stab at suicide, though his smile never quite made it to his eyes. These latched on firmly to the Blackfish's and shifted little as Aegon wiped a couple of stray drops of Tully spit from his cheek, weighing the Blackfish's words in uneasy silence.
"Your King is dead and his Kingdom with him, last I checked. Your army is gone, your castle-"
"Bugger you, wretch! By rights-"
"By rights? By rights you say. By rights your nephew Edmure is the criminal now, and you with him. Most like I'll be pardoned and richly rewarded once I turn you over to the Lannisters.. "
The Blackfish sneered again and would have spat at the weasel were his mouth not so dry. "Why haven't you already, you son of a whore?"
"Your nephew, Lord Edmure. Ser Edmure now, I suppose. He is yet to leave the Riverlands."
"..What of it?"
"What of it? He's bound west for Casterly Rock, with four hundred men for escort."
The Blackfish looked at him, at a loss, and Aegon tilted his head in thought, his hand giving the Blackfish's thigh a distatestful squeeze.
"If the Kingslayer thinks a single one of you is worth four hundred common men, who am I to disagree? And I'll wager the babe in her belly is worth ten times that, at the very least."
The Blackfish studied his eyes and had not the good sense to stop from talking.
"So long as I draw breath House Frey shall never sit easy. Neither Riverrun nor the Twins shall be secure to them if I can help it."
The outlaw smiled and nodded. "We stand together."