Chapter 30:
Author's Notes: If it's not obvious, this is a memory.
The drums were pounding, pounding, pounding and her head with them. Pipes wailed and flutes trilled from the musicians' gallery at the foot of the hall; fiddles screeched, horns blew, the skins skirled a lively tune, but the drumming drove them all. The sounds echoed off the rafters, whilst the guests ate, drank, and shouted at one another below. Walder Frey must be deaf as a stone to call this music. Spencer sipped a cup of wine, Jhogo beside her like a troubled cloud, and watched Jinglebell prance to the sounds of "Alysanne." At least she thought it was meant to be "Alysande." With these players, it might as easily have been "The Bear and the Maiden Fair."
Outside the rain still fell, but within the Twins the air was thick and hot. A fire roared in the hearth and rows of torches burned smokily from iron sconces on the walls. Yet most of the heat came off the bodies of the wedding guests, jammed in so thick along the benches that every man who tried to lift his cup poked his neighbor in the ribs. Even on the dais they were closer than Spencer.
Her uncle, Edmure, was kissing Roslin and squeezing her hand. Elsewhere in the hall, Ser Marq Piper and Ser Danwell Frey played a drinking game, Lame Lothar said something amusing to Ser Hosteen, one of the younger Freys juggled three daggers for a group of giggly girls, and Jinglebell sat on the floor sucking wine off his fingers. The servers were bringing out huge silver platters piled high with cuts of juicy pink lamb, the most appetizing dish they'd seen all evening. And Glen was leading Dacey Mormont in a dance.
"Your Grace," Lord Walder called out to Glen, "the septon has prayed his prayers, some words have been said, and Lord Edmure's wrapped my sweetling in a fish cloak, but they are not yet man and wife. A sword needs a sheath, heh, and a wedding needs a bedding. What does my sire say? Is it meet that we should bed them?"
A score or more of Walder Frey's sons and grandsons began to bang their cups again, shouting, "To bed! To bed! To bed with them!" Hearing the bawdy shouts, Spencer once again wished she had stayed outside with Greywind and Phantom. She had seen Roslin's face pale and hearing the crude chants around her, wished she had the cool evening air in her face than this noise.
Glen raised a hand. "If you think the time is meet, Lord Walder, by all means let us bed them."
A roar of approval met his pronouncement. Up in the gallery the musicians took up their pipes and horns and fiddles again, and began to play "The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, and the King Took Off His Crown." The guests swarmed the dias, the drunkest in the forefront as ever. The men and the boys surrounded Roslin and lifted her into the air whilst the maids and mothers in the hall pulled Edmure to his feet and began tugging at his clothing. He was laughing and shouting bawdy jokes back at them, though the music was too loud for Spencer to hear.
Dacey Mormont, aside from her mother, seemed to be the only woman left in the hall with besides Spencer, stepped up behind Edwyn Frey, and touched him lightly on the arm as she said something in his ear. Edwyn wrenched himself away from her with unseemly violence. "No," he said, too loudly. "I'm done with dancing for the nonce." Dacey paled and turned away. Spencer got slowly to her feet while Jhogo stiffened beside her and placed a hand on his sword. What just happened there? Even Ser Wendel Manderly took note. "I something amiss?" he asked, the leg of lamb in his hands.
Paula Carlin stood up and went after Edwyn Frey. The players in the gallery had finally gotten both the king and queen down to their name-day suits. With scarcely a moment's respite they began to play a different sort of song. No one sang the words, but Spencer knew "The Rains of Castamere" when she heard it. Paula grabbed Edwyn by the arm to turn him around. Spencer flinched when Paula slapped him so hard she broke his lip.
"Spencer all is not well here. We must leave now." Jhogo whispered urgently.
Glen gave Edwyn an angry look when he shoved their mother aside. He moved to block his way…and staggered suddenly as a quarrel sprouted from his side, just beneath the shoulder. If he screamed then, the sound was swallowed by the pipes and horns and fiddles. Spencer saw a second bolt pierce his leg. Up in the gallery, half the musicians had crossbows in their hands instead of drums or lutes. Smalljon Umber wrestled a table off its trestles and flung it down on top of Glen. Robin Flint was ringed with Freys, their daggers rising and falling. Ser Wendel rose ponderously to his feet, holding a leg of lamb. A quarrel went in his open mouth and came out the back of his neck. Ser Wendel fell forwards, knocking the table off its trestles and sending cups, flagons, trenchers, platters, turnips, beets, and wine bouncing, spilling, and sliding across the floor.
To her right, Jhogo fended off all who tried to reach her. His sword moved quickly and precisely. Spencer stepped back from the scene in front of her and grabbed a knife from the table to shield herself from those who escaped Jhogo's attentions.
In the midst of slaughter, the Lord of the Crossing sat on his carved oaken throne, watching greedily.
The tabletop that Smalljon had flung over Glen shifted, and he struggled to his knees. He had an arrow in his side, a second in his leg, a third through his chest. Lord Walder raised a hand, and the music stopped, all but one drum. Spencer heard the crash of distant battle, and closer the wild howlings of wolves. "Heh," Lord Walder cackled at Glen, "the King in the North arises. Seems we killed some of your men, Your Grace. Oh, but I'll make you an apology, that will mend them all again, heh."
Spencer watched from beside the bloodrider as her mother grabbed a handful of Jinglebell Frey's long grey hair and dragged him out of his hiding place. "Lord Walder!" she shouted. "LORD WALDER!" The drum beat slow and sonorous, doom boom boom, in Spencer's ears. "Enough," said Paula. "Enough, I say. You have repaid betrayal with betrayal, let it end." The drum went boom doom boom doom boom doom. "Please," she said. "He is my son. My first son, and my last. Let him go. Let him go and I swear we will forget this…forget all you've done here. I swear it by the old gods and new, we…we will take no vengeance…"
Lord Walder peered at her in mistrust. "Only a fool would believe such blather. D'you take me for a fool, my lady?"
"I take you for a father. Keep me hostage, Edmure as well if you haven't killed him. But let Glen go."
"No." Glen's voice was whisper faint. "Mother, no…"
"Yes. Glen, get up. Get up and walk out, please, please. Save yourself…if not for me, for Jeyne."
"Jeyne?" Glen grabbed the edge of the table and forced himself to stand. "Mother," he said, "Grey Wind…"
"Go to him. Now. Glen, walk out of here."
Lord Walder snorted. "And why would I let him do that?"
Spencer's world had narrowed to each second each side faced each other. She wanted to reach forward and stand beside her mother but Jhogo now had a firm grip on her arm, never forgetting his duty.
"On my honor as a Tully," she told Lord Walder, "on my honour as a Stark, I will trade your boy's life for Glen's. A son for a son." Her hand shook so badly she was ringing Jinglebell's head.
Boom, the drum sounded, boom doom boom doom. The old man's lips went in and out. The knife trembled in her mother's hand, slippery with sweat. "A son for a son, heh," he repeated. "But that's a grandson…and he never was much use."
A man in dark armor and a pale pink coat spotted with blood stepped up to Glen. "Jaime Lannister sends his regards." He thrust his longsword through her brother's heart, and twisted.
Glen had broken his word but Paula kept hers. She tugged hard on Aegon's hair and sawed at his neck until the blade grated on bone. Blood ran hot over her fingers. His little bells were ringing, ringing, ringing, and the drum went boom doom boom.
That was the last Spencer heard or saw before Jhogo dragged her outside the hall, away from the massacre, away from her family.