CATELYN II

After Theon had left the Great Hall, things began to settle down. Sansa did her best to soothe Rickon, but the babe proved inconsolable. The meal had been ruined when the servants had dropped the platter containing the roasted stag's leg in all the commotion. Catelyn and Ned decided that it would be best to set the youngest to bed and send the rest of the children off to the kitchens to eat. Sansa refused to eat, saying she wasn't all that hungry and instead focused all her attentions on Rickon-who was still a handful, but increasingly less so-obviously tired from overexertion.

"Why is he here and not Shaggy and Osha? He attacked Winterfell!" bewailed the boy. This confused Catelyn, but she let Sansa, who seemed to know what to say to these things better than she, to continue to soothe her babe. It pained her to see this task fall to her eldest daughter, but Catelyn knew not what to do. Scrapes, bruises, hurts, and tears she could consol, but madness? It was completely out of her reach. Ned gave her the look that she knew he meant he wished to speak with her and so they left Sansa to him.

"I know not what he raves about with this Shaggydog or Osha, or Theon attacking Winterfell," Catelyn admitted once they'd closed the door to the nursery, and they began to walk down the long hall.

"The child is sick, he needs to be a bed. I shall send Maester Luwin to him in the morning."

"He's more than just sick, Ned! I fear he's gone mad..."

"He's not the only one, I'm afraid."

It was then Ned put a finger over his mouth, indicated that there were small shadows down the hall and motioned for Catelyn to speak with him outside on a wooden terrace, built adjacent to her chambers. They'd find some privacy to speak there. By the seven she knew they'd need it.

"What mean you, he's not the only one?" asked Catelyn in a harried whisper when she'd closed the door.

"I wanted to worry you not, Cat, but... Bran, though he hides it well, has not been himself either."

Catelyn almost felt like she would fall, but she gathered her strength before her knees could buckle. Bran? Her sweet and darling boy? It couldn't be true! But then again, Ned had been troubled last night with Bran-even she had suspected that much. What if it was true? Was it a curse? A curse upon her family. Madness had been a Targaryeon trait. Had the Seven been displeased with her family's involvement in overturning the Mad King? The King-for all that he had been mad-had still been an anointed King-blessed with the seven holy oils and crowned rightfully as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms and keeper of the faith of the Seven pointed star in the Sept of Baelor. Had they been wrong to o'erthrow him?

"Speak to me, Cat. You torture me with silence," urged Ned, a quivering emotion tentatively poking out from his icy Northern exterior.

"Were we wrong?" was all that Cat could manage to utter.

He looked at her with utter confusion before saying, "What mean you?"

"Were we wrong to o'erthrow an anointed King? The Seven's chosen." clarified Catelyn with a certain amount of dignity being given to the titles more than they had in several years. For when an usurper takes the throne, what does it mean to be the rightful king?

Ned's reaction was quick and fierce, as though she had slapped him by merely suggesting it. "How can you you ask that? He was mad!"

She looked at him pointedly and said, "And now so are our sons."

Ned seemed troubled by this comment, as if he wanted to dismiss it, like he did most matters of faith he struggled with, but he simply said, "The Gods work not that way."

"Your gods."

An uneasy silence over fell them for a long while, which neither seemed to break until Catelyn said, "I need to pray."

And she left him there upon the terrace. As she returned to the hall, she heard Sansa scream from the nursery followed by a crashing sound and a distinct rabble of fighting. Catelyn ran as fast as she could to the nursery and opened the door. What she saw inside confirmed her worst fears. Bran was mad. He growled and grunted like a wild animal, biting and scratching Arya who apparently was trying to subdue him, but in the process was destroying the room. Sansa and Rickon were huddled together on her babe's bed, in utter fear of the scene before them. And now, Catelyn knew that they had been wrong, and that they were cursed.