CATELYN
The noise reached them first. It was a horrendous din, a clamour of shouts and curses and the screech of metal. Next there came the smell. The scent of death and rot was unmistakeable and overpowering; it took a gargantuan act of self-control for Catelyn to avoid retching. Only then, after they ascended a lip of the land in the rolling ground of the Vale of Ranimon, did they see it.
The grass of the valley that comprised the eastern way to Storm's End had been turned to mud, but there was a reddish tinge to much of it on a part of the ground ahead that inclined upward. There was no other trace left there in the central, lower part of the valley, but on the harsher, rockier sides that commanded the approaches to the upward piece of land where most of the killing had clearly taken place, it was a different story. That land was far too rough for wagons, and even horses would not have been happy. Sweating, cursing men on foot were slowly cutting through the expanse of shrubbery, revealing pits and removing ugly four-pronged artifices of metal that she had heard were called crow's-feet. Every now and then a man would cry out in pain as he fell to one; if so, sometimes his fellows would take him away; at other times there was nothing that could be done to save him. The object of this exercise was to find bodies. What must have been at least many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armoured corpses—it was hard to make a reckoning—littered the Vale of Ranimon. Cuts in the land showed that pits had already been dug for the lowborn men, but not only the common-born had died on this battlefield. A cluster of silent sisters and of maesters with their charts of bloodlines and heraldry were gathered on some lower ground where most of the corpses had been heaped, with strong-backed young men to help them at their work and a few archers to shoot away the cloud of vultures, which were ever-present, circling above. The archers were nowhere near numerous enough. They were inspecting the bodies, looking for identifying features to tell who the dead men were. From the look of it, they would be here long.
A sense of bone-crushing despair descended on the mind of Catelyn Stark. We failed, she thought. One or two days faster and we would have reached this place in time, but our pace was not enough. Lord Renly and Lord Stannis have fought and paid a price in blood too terrible to contemplate. One of the brothers Baratheon is dead, the other attrited, and the only true victors are the Lannisters. The queen must be laughing.
Catelyn's escorts, both her own men and the outriders in service to Lord Caron who had found her several days' ride away, did not linger here. It was not the sort of place where anyone would wish to linger. They hurried through the valley of death and made their way to the castle.
The single tower of Storm's End, surrounded by its curtain wall of pale grey stone, stood almost impossibly high and proud. Blood had been shed here, too, straight outside the castle, though plainly not near the same scale as the greater battlefield behind them. The crowned stag of Baratheon, black on gold, reared triumphant on the standards streaming from that House's ancestral seat. Catelyn thought darkly that it would speak more truly if it were replaced by a sigil of one stag on a field coloured with its own blood, exhausted, standing over the corpse of another.
The outriders took them to the gates, which were opened for them. Inside, the Lord of Storm's End awaited them. Renly Baratheon was surrounded by his lords bannermen and his Rainbow Guard, with armour cleaned but faces grim. Catelyn could not help but notice that they numbered only four; the red, orange, blue and purple cloaks remained, but the green and yellow, and Ser Loras Tyrell their leader, did not.
"My lady of Stark," said Lord Renly. Even when discussing his intention to sit out and watch men die if House Stark would not bend the knee to him, or the cannibals whom his brother had hanged when his Tyrell friends had besieged this very castle in fealty to Aerys Targaryen, he had retained a certain cheer, an undisturbed veil of easy charm. Now his face could have been carved from stone. His first battle has changed him, Catelyn thought, a blind man could see it.
"Your Grace," Catelyn said, with a curtsy for courtesy's sake.
Lord Renly's voice was icy cold. "I have no doubt you knew what was to occur. I have doubt you expected to like the sight of it. Why is it that you have come here?"
"To inform you, Your Grace," Catelyn replied. "You and your brother."
There was a sharp intake of breath at that.
"I bore tidings," she said. "Proof enough that the words concerning the queen and the Kingslayer are true. Enough, I hoped, to ward off battle and bring you and your lord brother to an accord, whereby you could defeat the Lannisters and then settle the issue of claims and kingship. It scarce matters now."
"The latter part of that is true, for certain. My brother died in battle yesterday morning. His body will be sent with a ship of silent sisters to his home with his widow and his daughter, where he belonged, on Dragonstone. Would that he had remained there. His bid for the Iron Throne died with him. There can be no dispute that I am the Lord of Storm's End and the male head of House Baratheon, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, and I will remain so. Tell your son this: the Iron Throne will be seat to myself or Joffrey, the man who slew Eddard Stark. That is the choice he faces. He should make it wisely."
"And what do you offer him, Your Grace?"
"My offer has not changed since we spoke last, though perhaps you will be persuaded by the fact that my position has. He may be my Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. He may even be liegelord over the riverlands and call himself a king if it please him much. My nephew did a grievous insult to House Stark; I recognise that blood runs hot and feelings are high. But I expect his fealty, his loyalty, his service to me as his liegelord in turn, for him to me as his father to Robert. Give me those and I will be content. Deny them, choose to be a rebel against the one true king, and I will destroy him as I have destroyed Stannis."
The absolute dichotomy in Lord Renly's words—death or service—was stark. Before that battle, he was still a hard man, thought Catelyn, recalling their quiet conversation when she had begged leave from the feast at Bitterbridge, but his was a fist of steel artfully hidden in a silken glove of courtesy and charm. Now the glove is gone. There is only steel.
"For such a thing I must consult with my son, Your Grace. I cannot swear fealty on my son's behalf, not when he has never heard of it, nor of the reason."
A certain humour, dry and cold, found its way back into Renly Baratheon's voice. "I never expected you to."
He does not mean to have an accord, Catelyn realised. Mayhaps he never did, not since the very moment he knew Robb hadn't sent me here to pledge allegiance. Helplessness gripped her like a vice. Little Rickon, left at Winterfell, a mere child at the age when his mother was needed. Sweet Bran, climbing like a squirrel, whom she had not seen awake since the day he fell. Her poor daughters, different as night and day but both of them beloved, in the capital under the power of the Lannisters. And now Robb, who had sent her here. Would she fail him too? Am I doomed to fail all my children?
"Your Grace—" and now her voice was almost pleading— "I do not know what you would have me say."
"There is not much," Lord Renly agreed. "You have my word, I will see to it that you are brought in safety to Riverrun."
Catelyn had scarcely known there could be such despair. Six weeks she had been riding here, pushing the horses as hard as she dared, hard as they could over such a great distance off-road without killing them—more than that, all the three turns of the moon since she had ridden out from Riverrun—and yet once she was here she found herself with little she could say. What should I tell him? Condemn him for the death of his brother? That would be true, and he deserves it for certain… but how can I? Above all else she was a mother, and she must be strong for Robb's sake. Screaming, crying, shouting, telling Renly of the dire consequences of his heedless rush to get to grips with his brother—for it was that haste, his choice to head to Storm's End with only men ahorse, leaving his host of foot in Bitterbridge, that had ruined her plans to arrive here before his army and mediate between him and Lord Stannis—but what good would that do? Certainly not for Lord Stannis, who was beyond all help now—may the Father judge him justly—and not for her son.
"Your Grace," Ser Colen of Greenpools was saying, "where should I meet you then, once I return?"
The hard edge to Renly's voice softened. "Not you, ser. You have served me faithfully and well, beyond what any could have expected of you as an outrider, from Bitterbridge to Berryhill and then here to Storm's End. 'Twould not be meet to expect you to come hence to Riverrun and back again. No, I would that you rejoin your comrades in arms here. I will send one of my own household knights in service directly to Storm's End, with Baratheon men-at-arms, to escort Lady Stark to Riverrun. And I have just the man; Ser Richard of Handon, I think, would do admirably. He fought for my brother in the rebellion, a steady hand and a swift sword."
The grizzled knight bowed low. "Your Grace, your will be done."
After taking her leave from Renly's royal presence, as her group's horses had been driven past exhaustion, Catelyn exchanged them for others from the stables of Storm's End. She and her companions drank Renly's water and wine and ate his meat and salt and bread for a few days more, to refresh their strength after the long journey. With the amount of time already wasted, going southward from Riverrun to Bitterbridge then back northward until Berryhill whence they had come hither to Storm's End, she had little desire to tarry longer still by taking a circuitous route. Instead she rode through the heart of the war, through fertile riverlands turned to blackened desert by the fury of the Lannisters, and each night her scouts brought back tales that made her ill.
When they had drawn near to Riverrun, a scout spied them riding through a low valley from a hill. Catelyn was glad to see the silver eagle sigil of House Mallister.
When she asked the Mallister scout to lead them to her uncle, he said, "I cannot, m'lady Stark. Ser Brynden is in the west with the king."
"I see." It did not surprise her to learn that Robb had struck at the heart of Lannister power; clearly he had been contemplating just that when he sent her away to treat with Renly. "Who commands you now?"
"Martyn Rivers, m'lady, the bastard of the Crossing."
The name was familiar. She had met Rivers at the Twins; a baseborn son of Lord Walder Frey, half-brother to Ser Perwyn. "And where is he camped?"
"Days to the east, m'lady. No foes here. Most o' m'lord Tully's scouts are there, watching the Lannisters. Few of us remain so near to Riverrun. Those do, we report to m'lord hisself."
"Take us to the castle, then," she commanded. She mounted her horse again, and they set out at once.
This old scout was not the most loquacious sort. That pleased Catelyn well. She had no wish to bandy words. She preferred to be at a warm hearth in Riverrun, safe and sound.
She did have two questions, however. "How fares Robb in the west?"
"M'lady…? 'Twas more than two moons past." It seemed to surprise the outrider that she had asked. "The king vanquished a host of westermen at a place men call Oxcross, a short way beyond the Rock. Their lord commander, Ser Stafford Lannister, was slain."
Ser Wendel Manderly gave a whoop of pleasure, but Catelyn only nodded. Tomorrow's trials concerned her more than yesterday's triumphs.
"And my brother, is he with him?"
"No, m'lady, Ser Edmure holds Riverrun."
Catelyn had presumed that the Tully whom the scout had spoken of, holding the castle, was her lord father. She had not known that her family's men had taken to calling her brother "m'lord". Gods grant him the strength to do so, she thought, grimly, and the wisdom as well. She was more doubtful of the latter.
They forded the Red Fork that day, upstream of Riverrun where the river made a wide loop and the waters grew muddy and shallow. Between the Red Fork and the Tumblestone they made for the safety of Riverrun. Along the journey, the smallfolk went placidly about their work. These lands had been ravaged at the orders of the Lannisters, but it had been moons since there had been any westermen here, since her son's victories had driven them away, and though winter may come, it had not come yet. Left, to some extent, in peace, they were rebuilding their lives as best they could. Not for them the need for vengeance; they simply counted themselves lucky to be alive and moved on. In a mad moment she almost thought she envied them.
As she drew nearer to the castle, Catelyn saw from a distance that something dark was dangling against the walls of Riverrun. When she rode close, she saw dead men hanging from the battlements, slumped at the ends of long ropes with hempen nooses tight around their necks. The crows had been at them so severely that they scarcely looked like men at all, near-devoured skeletons with scraps of stringy rotting flesh, but their crimson cloaks still showed bright against the sandstone walls.
"They have hanged some Lannisters," Hal Mollen observed.
"A pretty sight," Ser Wendel Manderly said cheerfully.
"Our friends have begun without us," Ser Perwyn Frey jested. The others laughed.
If they have slain the Kingslayer, then my daughters are dead as well. Catelyn spurred her horse to a canter. Hal Mollen and Robin Flint raced past at a gallop, halooing to the gatehouse. The guards on the walls had doubtless spied her banners some time ago, for the portcullis was up as they approached.
Edmure rode out from the castle to meet her, surrounded by three of her father's sworn men—great-bellied Ser Desmond Grell the master-at-arms, Utherydes Wayn the steward, and Ser Robin Ryger, Riverrun's big bald captain of guards. They were all three of an age with Lord Hoster, men who had spent their lives in her father's service. Old men, Catelyn realised.
Edmure wore a blue-and-red cloak over a tunic embroidered with silver fish. From the look of him, he had not shaved since she rode south; his beard was a fiery bush. "Cat, it is good to have you safely back. Not that I doubted, of course, you must understand… but you have been away moons longer than the king or I expected, so we feared for you, under the circumstances."
The abrupt reversal of her journey back to Riverrun with the news she had heard at Berryhill, turning her to Storm's End ere she headed to her birthplace again, was reason enough for that.
But one of her brother's phrases stuck in her head. "What circumstances?"
Edmure and his escort traded looks. "Some discussions are best held in private. Ser…?"
"Richard," the quiet, dark-haired stormlander knight said. "Of Handon, long in service to Storm's End."
"You have my thanks, then, Ser Richard, for seeing my sister here. But your duty is done. Utherydes, please ensure Ser Richard and his men-at-arms are given refreshments and rooms for the night ere they return to the stormlands. I would not have it said that House Tully treated guests rudely."
The steward bowed. "It will be done, my lord."
My lord. That simple thoughtless common phrase, when used by a loftier personage by far than the nameless old scout, sent a chill down Catelyn's spine. Whether or not Lord Hoster still lived, the folk of Riverrun, great and small, had become accustomed to the matter of who gave commands here.
"How fares our father?" she asked him, as he led her through their castle afoot. She had given her horse to an urchin from the stables.
"One day he seems stronger, the next…" He shook his head. "He's asked for you. I did not know what to tell him."
"I will go to him soon," she vowed. "Has there been word from Storm's End since Lord Stannis was slain? Or from Bitterbridge, where Lord Renly left his host of foot?" No ravens came to men on the road, and Catelyn was anxious to know what had happened behind her.
"None that you do not know, only news of the battle and a demand for allegiance," Edmure said, grimly, "but there has been word of else. Not here."
Catelyn accepted that. Waving a hand up at the bodies, she asked, "Who are these men you've hanged?"
Edmure glanced up uncomfortably. "They came with Ser Cleos when he brought the queen's answer to our peace offer."
Catelyn was shocked. "You've killed envoys?"
"False envoys," Edmure declared. "They pledged me their peace and surrendered their weapons, so I allowed them freedom of the castle, and for three nights they ate my meat and drank my mead whilst I talked with Ser Cleos. On the fourth night, they tried to free the Kingslayer." He pointed up. "That big brute killed two guards with naught but those ham hands of his, caught them by the throats and smashed their skulls together while that skinny lad beside him was opening Lannister's cell with a bit of wire, gods curse him. The one on the end was some sort of damned mummer. He used my own voice to command that the River Gate be opened. The guardsmen swear to it, Enger and Delp and Long Lew, all three. If you ask me, the man sounded nothing like me, and yet the oafs were raising the portcullis all the same."
This was the Imp's work, Catelyn suspected; it stank of the same sort of cunning he had displayed at the Eyrie. Once, she would have named Tyrion the least dangerous of the Lannisters. Now she was not so certain. "How is it you caught them?"
"Ah, as it happened, I was not in the castle. I'd crossed the Tumblestone to, ah…"
"You were whoring or wenching. Get on with the tale."
Edmure's cheeks flamed as red as his beard. "It was the hour before dawn, and I was only then returning. When Long Lew saw my boat and recognised me, he finally thought to wonder who was standing below barking commands, and raised a cry."
"Tell me the Kingslayer was retaken."
"Yes, though not easily. Jaime got hold of a sword and slew Delp and Poul Pemford and Ser Desmond's squire Myles. It was a bloody mess. At the sound of steel, some of the other red cloaks rushed to join him, barehand or no. I hanged those beside the four who freed him, and threw the rest in the dungeons. Jaime too. We'll have no more escapes from that one. He's down in the dark this time, chained hand and foot and bolted to the wall."
"And Cleos Frey?"
"He swears he knew naught of this. Who can say? The man is half Lannister, half Frey, and all liar. I put him in Jaime's old tower cell."
"You say he brought terms?"
"If you can call them that. You'll like them no more than I did, I promise. The hostage exchange was unbalanced but at least worthy to be considered—her opening offer was the Kingslayer and two of her cousins for your daughters, your lord husband's sword, Lord Cerwyn and the heirs to Oldcastle, White Harbour and the Karhold—whereas the greater proposal was wholly unacceptable."
"And what was that?"
Edmure gave a snort of derision. "The queen wishes us to tamely bend the knee, with a few Lannister men to live in our castles and report to her every week, lest we play her false. I'm not a fool. She only wants time to fight Lord Renly without needing to fight us. Doubtless, if we were to accept and the Lannisters were to defeat him, they'd be singing a very different tune indeed once he was out of the way. It astonished me to hear such; I doubt she's fool enough to believe we would ever accept it."
Once they were secluded in her lord father's study, Ser Robin Ryger spoke. "My lady, can you tell us what you know of Lord Stannis's death? Lord Renly's ravens were less than forthcoming."
They wouldn't be. "Lord Stannis was slain in battle." Catelyn felt very old and very tired, with the knowledge of futility. "He had a tale—I don't doubt you have heard it—of the queen and the Kingslayer, of incest and adultery and treason. 'Tis a true one. The Lannisters tried to murder my son Bran, first by pushing him and then by sending a man with a dagger to open his throat, and only then did I understand why. The queen and her brother stayed behind at Winterfell that day, when Ned and Robert and the other men were out hunting. Bran must have chanced upon them. He always did have a love for climbing that wretched broken tower no man's set foot in for many years, but he never fell before… But 'tis no matter. I rode back as soon as I heard Lord Stannis's tale when I came upon a keep that men call Berryhill, at the same time as I heard he'd laid siege to Storm's End. But I came too late. Lord Renly marched to Storm's End with only his host of horse, and as I had spent a week going the wrong way, even as an army to a small group they outpaced us. When I arrived, Lord Stannis had been dead a day and a half. He and Lord Renly fought a battle in the Vale of Ranimon, this Clash of the Stags. I came across its field and saw it myself. Lord Stannis had some prepared ground with earthworks and crow's-feet and rocky approaches, and Lord Renly's losses were hideous—thousands, certainly, though I could not say how many. But Lord Stannis and his host are gone, slain almost to a man, and Lord Renly will surely have already begun his march to rejoin his host of foot, and thence to the capital."
"And what word of alliance?" asked Utherydes Wayn. "Lord Renly's host is great, but he depends too much on the Tyrells for his taste, I would presume. Surely 'twould please him to make common cause with us."
"Little. Lord Renly talks handsomely but he is quite unbending. He made a splendid show of his generosity, but he is willing to grant concessions only in words. He demands Robb's fealty. That, I cannot give to him. He is a harder man than he seems, I tell you. He has no desire to intervene in a war between us and the Lannisters if neither will bend the knee to him. He prefers to sit back and let us both die, so that he can pounce on the remains."
"I see," Edmure said.
"What word of Robb?" asked Catelyn. "I heard that he won a victory at Oxcross, but I know little more."
"He did destroy the host that was gathering beyond the Rock, when that wolf of his found a goat track that let his army slip past the Golden Tooth unseen by the watchtowers of the Lannisters," said Edmure, "but that was more than two moons past, Cat. His host of horse lacks the men and siege engines to take Lannisport or Casterly Rock, so he has been doing unto the westerlands as the westermen did unto us. Seizing mines, plundering towns, burning farms, capturing cattle… you may have noticed the speed of our recovery here, and that's in no small due to what we've taken from the westermen. But Lord Tywin couldn't let such go unanswered; his own vassals would have his head if he sat tight in Harrenhal while their homes burnt."
Catelyn wondered whether she looked as pale as she felt. "What happened, Edmure? What did Lord Tywin do?"
"We all thought he would march west, but he didn't. With much of his army sent to reinforce King's Landing, he must have felt he didn't have the strength to break across the Red Fork against opposition. He'd still outnumber us, even if I called father's bannermen here, but father always said you need at least two men to one, and better three, if you wish to cross a river or take a holdfast 'gainst a prepared opponent, and Lord Tywin's advantage is not strong enough for him to dare it. So he didn't go west. He went north."
"Lord Bolton," Catelyn murmured.
"Yes. You know, Lord Bolton reassembled his army after his defeat at the Green Fork, and marched south to occupy the cross of the kingsroad and the high road of Arryn, and, beyond it, the ruby ford of the Trident. His host was a dagger at Lord Tywin's back. Lord Tywin couldn't leave his holdfasts south of the Trident, Harrenhal foremost among them, lest he lose them to Bolton's army straight afterward; and if he loses them, he'll be unable to march south and keep King's Landing from Lord Renly, which he surely knows he will have to do, with his brother's host outnumbered by Lord Renly's mayhaps as many times as half a dozen to one."
"'Was'," Catelyn noted, with rising dread. "Does Lord Bolton still have an army?"
"Half of one," her brother said bluntly. "Locked up in a bunch of petty holdfasts they found to the north of the Trident, cowering from Lord Tywin's wrath. Why Robb gave the man a battle command I'll never know; 'tis the greatest reverse we've suffered since the Battle of the Green Fork, also led by Bolton. He's alive, I'm told, though soon he might not be. A raven came from Robett Glover, near a moon and a week ago. He is in command now."
"Good gods." May they forgive me. She knew why Roose Bolton had been given a command; she had steered Robb towards that path herself, to stop him from appointing the Greatjon. Ned had never had an ill word for Lord Bolton's skill at command. Had he been wrong? Or was it just that any man could lose two battles against Tywin Lannister? Catelyn hoped it was the latter, if only so that she had not misled her son so greatly. "Half… good gods… how was the defeat so severe?"
"Whatever slime lies in Lord Tywin's humours elsewise, he is cunning, I will give him that. More of his men than not were afoot, and they bore a heavy baggage train, numberless wagons moving off-road over boggy ground. Nothing seemed of note when it took him two and a half weeks to march from Harrenhal to the Trident, but it should. Long before he came upon the river, mayhaps even ere he marched from Harrenhal at all, he detached a great part of his horse under Ser Addam Marbrand and sent them ahead of the bulk of his host, and to the west of him. Men ahorse against foot, they greatly outpaced the main Lannister army, and though Bolton burnt the bridges save only for those that he held, they must have had time enough to raft across the river. Robb took away near all the northern horse, so Bolton's host had almost naught but foot; they lacked sufficient outriders to ride in many directions far enough beyond his camp. Glover thinks Marbrand was two days' ride or more to the west of Bolton on the north bank, and didn't near him till Lord Tywin sent a rider to give a signal. 'Twas planned, all of it. The main body of Lord Tywin's host attacked them on the south bank of the Trident, and at first all seemed well. They had pikemen, archers, spears. They were retreating 'cross the ruby ford in good order. Then Marbrand's detachment sped out of the woods and hammered them from the other side. The result was chaos. Lord Tywin pursued across the river and for a day afterwards, exhausted men afoot chased by mounted knights. Only the exhaustion of the western knights prevented worse. Robett Glover tells me 'tis hard to say but he believes about three-thousand northmen were slain, nearly all of those in the chase and the rout, and another two-thousand deserted or were isolated on the wrong side of the river. Truth be told, 'tis a miracle he managed to keep together as many men as he did. There's a man worthy of command, I tell you. Lord Tywin's losses are harder to guess, but Glover thinks one or two thousand westermen fell in the attack on Bolton's pikes and bows and earthworks on the south bank ere Ser Addam Marbrand sprung at the north."
Catelyn tried to think of the scale of that defeat. Roose Bolton had had ten-thousand men. He had lost half of them, and mayhaps soon his life too. "Can Glover hold?"
"A few moons mayhaps, but not for long," said Edmure. "There aren't many castles in the Seven Kingdoms that can long hold an army of five-thousand men, so they're in a group of smaller ones. Glover foraged as much food as he could as quickly as he could from the surrounding lands, but he didn't expect to be in those keeps enduring a siege. Those holdfasts won't have the provisions to feed an army to withstand as long as it otherwise could. They cannot. How can they, when Bolton had no notion that he should prepare them? I called the banners as soon as I heard and meant to march to his succour, but Robb sent a raven from Ashemark. He insists that I remain at Riverrun. He thinks we have not the numbers here to meet Lord Tywin in the field, and he thinks Lord Tywin will have to come west."
"He will," said Catelyn. "Ashemark, you say? That is the stronghold of House Marbrand. How do you think a man like Ser Addam, young and bold and noble-born and unaccustomed to tastes other than the taste of victory, will respond to winning a great battle for his liegelord, only to see his own lord father's seat captured by the enemy while that same liegelord doesn't lift a finger for it? And he's not the only one. The Lannisters won't keep the allegiance of the lords of the west if they let their homes be plundered and their lands go to ruin. Let Lord Tywin stay with Glover, and let his army melt away like heavy winter snows come summertime… or let him come to the westerlands, so, whatever plan Robb has, Lord Tywin is playing into his hands."
"No man can outcompete Lord Tywin in a game of cruelty, Cat," Edmure said. "I have many ears and eyes in the lands east of the Mudwash and south of the Trident, and I dare not tell you what I've seen there. It would make you sick. Since the Battle of the Banks my lords have been half mutinous at me. To name but a few, Lord Bracken's sent no fewer than four ravens asking me whether I mean to call the banners and march east, and I suspect Lord Blackwood only hasn't since he's heard Lord Bracken has. And those are lords with the strength of Tully and Riverrun between their seats and the Lannister host. Those lords closer to them are worse. Even Frey, far as he is, has been sending me anxious letters complaining there is too little Tully strength between the Twins and Lord Tywin, and you do not want to know what Mooton has been calling me. There are more. There are times I fear they'll all take up arms and march to fight the Lannisters without me, royal command or nay."
The last point was a jest. The rest was not. "Robb is our king, Edmure," Catelyn said. "Have faith in his plans and in him. For all the ill words you have heard, Lord Tywin will have heard as many. We can have patience. He cannot play this waiting game forever."
"I hope so, Cat," said Edmure, though his tone said he still doubted it. She bade him goodbye and went to find their father.
Lord Hoster Tully was much as she had left him—abed, haggard, flesh pale and clammy. The room smelt of sickness, a cloying odour made up in equal parts of stale sweat and medicine. When she pulled back the drapes, her father gave a low moan, and his eyes fluttered open. He stared at her as if he could not comprehend who she was or what she wanted.
"Father." She kissed him. "I am returned."
He seemed to know her then. "You've come," he whispered faintly, lips barely moving.
"Yes," she said. "Robb sent me south, but I hurried back."
"South… where… Is the Eyrie south, sweetling? I don't recall… oh, dear heart, I was afraid… have you forgiven me, child?" Tears ran down his cheeks.
"You've done nothing that needs forgiveness, father." She stroked his limp white hair and felt his fevered brow. The fever still burnt him from within, despite all the maester's potions.
"It was best," her father whispered. "Jon's a good man, good… strong, kind… take care of you… he will… and well born, listen to me, you must, I'm your father… your father… you'll wed when Cat does, yes you will…"
He thinks I'm Lysa, Catelyn realised. Gods be good, he talks as if we were not married yet. Her father's hands clutched at hers, fluttering like two frightened white birds. "That stripling… wretched boy… not speak that name to me, your duty… your mother, she would…" Lord Hoster cried as a spasm of pain washed over him. "Oh, gods forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. My medicine…"
And then Maester Vyman was there, holding a cup to his lips. Lord Hoster sucked at the thick white potion as eager as a babe at the breast, and Catelyn could see peace settle over him once more. "He'll sleep now, my lady," the maester said when the cup was empty. The milk of the poppy had left a thick white film around her father's mouth. Maester Vyman wiped it away with a sleeve.
Catelyn could watch no more. Hoster Tully had been a strong man, and proud. It hurt her to see him reduced to this. She went out to the terrace. The yard below was clear and peaceful, and beyond the walls the rivers flowed clean and pure and endless. This is his castle, and those are his rivers, and soon he will return to them for his last voyage.
Maester Vyman had followed her out. "My lady," he said softly, "I cannot keep the end at bay much longer. We ought send a rider after his brother. Ser Brynden would wish to be here."
"Yes," Catelyn said, her voice thick with grief.
"And the Lady Lysa as well, perhaps?"
"Lysa will not come."
"If you wrote her yourself, perhaps…"
"I will put some words to paper, if that please you." She wondered who Lysa's "wretched stripling" had been. Some young squire or hedge knight, like as not… though by the vehemence with which Lord Hoster had opposed him, he might have been a tradesman's son or baseborn apprentice, even a singer. Lysa had always been too fond of singers. I must not blame her. Jon Arryn was twenty years older than our father, however noble.
The tower her brother had set aside for her use was the very same that she and Lysa had shared as maids. It would feel good to sleep on a featherbed again, with a warm fire in the hearth; when she was rested the world would seem less bleak.
But outside her chambers she found Utherydes Wayn waiting with two women clad in grey, their faces cowled save for their eyes. Catelyn knew at once why they were here. "Ned?"
The sisters lowered their gaze. Utherydes said, "Ser Cleos brought him from King's Landing, my lady."
"Take me to him," she commanded.
They had laid him out on a trestle table and covered him with a banner, the white banner of House Stark with its grey direwolf sigil. "I would look on him," Catelyn said.
"Only the bones remain, my lady."
"I would look on him," she repeated.
One of the silent sisters turned down the banner.
Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned's hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned's surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, the arms that had held her. The head had been rejoined to the body with fine silver wire, but one skull looks much like another, and in those empty hollows she found no trace of her lord's dark grey eyes, eyes that could be soft as a fog or hard as stone. They gave his eyes to crows, she remembered.
Catelyn turned away. "That is not his sword," she said, in lieu of seeing and thinking of it more.
"Ice was not returned to us, my lady," Utherydes said, as if she did not already know. "Only Lord Eddard's bones."
"I suppose I must thank the queen for even that much."
It seemed her father's aged steward did not know what to say to that.
"I am grateful for your service, sisters," Catelyn said, "but I must lay another task upon you. Lord Eddard was a Stark, and his bones must be laid to rest beneath Winterfell." They will make a statue of him, a stone likeness that will sit in the dark with a direwolf at his feet and a sword across his knees. "Make certain the sisters have fresh horses, and aught else they need for the journey," she told Utherydes Wayn. "Hal Mollen will escort them back to Winterfell, it is his place as captain of guards." She gazed down at the bones that were all that remained of her lord and love. "Now leave me, all of you. I would be alone with Ned tonight."
The women in grey bowed their heads. The silent sisters do not speak to the living, Catelyn remembered dully, but some say they can talk to the dead. And how she envied that…
Author's Note: Some of the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that, in the most recent Arya chapter, Arya saw Lord Tywin's army leaving Harrenhal and going northward. You may also have noticed certain changes to Lord Tywin's disposition, such as the position of Ser Addam Marbrand.
I expect the Battle of the Banks to raise some questions, so I'll answer some of them pre-emptively.
What caused Lord Tywin to make this decision in Knees Falling when he didn't in canon?
Let's look at the background of this campaign. Lord Tywin reacted to Robb's victory over Jaime by retreating to Harrenhal, a nice strong defensive position. He thus hoped to force Robb into a devil's choice: first option, leave the Lannisters in control of much of the riverlands unchallenged, able to reave there to their heart's content, which would cause his army to dissolve around him as his vassals lost confidence in his willingness to protect them; second option, march past Harrenhal and try to take back the rest of the riverlands, thus leaving a large army in his rear able to attack him; third option, try to take a large and well-defended castle by storm and doubtless take thousands and thousands of casualties and probably fail anyway. None of those options were good ones. Robb took a fourth choice, one that Lord Tywin didn't expect: invade the westerlands, thus forcing Lord Tywin to react (which the Lannisters didn't anticipate because they didn't know about Robb having Magic Plot Powers to circumvent their defences, in the form of Grey Wind). Leaving Harrenhal is not a good decision from a purely strategic perspective, but sometimes political considerations trump strategic considerations. This is not an insult on my part. Strategy is subordinate to politics because war is not fought for its own sake, it is fought to achieve aims, in Lord Tywin's case keeping Joffrey on the Iron Throne and preserving the position of House Lannister; war is the continuation of politics by other means. Lord Tywin is not magically immune to the same political pressures that weakened Robb "the King Who Lost the North" in canon and forced him to return to the north to defend it from the ironmen. This is a feudal polity we are talking about. Lord Tywin commands his vassals' loyalty and receives their taxes and in return they are under his protection. If Lord Tywin appears to be unable or, worse, unwilling to fulfil his end of that social contract, the westerlords won't fulfil their end either. So he has to stop Robb from ravaging the westerlands. (All of this is as canon so far.)
Lord Tywin must then choose how he should respond. In canon, he marched westward with his army, in order to relieve the westerlands directly. That was a risky strategy. Lord Tywin's army outnumbered Ser Edmure Tully's, but not by very much (only about twenty-thousand westermen to eleven-thousand rivermen, i.e. about two to one). Edmure had some good terrain for defensive tactics, with plenty of time to prepare a defence, and he used it well. Two to one in favour of the attacker isn't really good enough when you're assaulting prepared fortifications. It was worth a try, especially since Edmure had a previous record of military incompetence, but not even Edmure managed to lose this battle. And in fairness to Lord Tywin, I should note, he knew that this was a risky choice. He didn't just rush in, as Jaime did at Riverrun. He probed Edmure's defences, made sure not to commit himself, and withdrew in good order once it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to cross the Red Fork successfully.
In Knees Falling, however, he's sent away four-thousand of his men under the command of his brother. He now outnumbers Edmure only by about three to two. That isn't enough to even try an assault against prepared defences; it's no longer worth the risk. So, instead, he takes an inferior choice (from the perspective of achieving his political goal, which, we must remember, is to soothe the discontent of his bannermen whose homes Robb is attacking). That choice is to attack Lord Roose Bolton's army. This is actually flattery of Robb, in the sense that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Lord Tywin hopes that, by ravaging a much greater proportion of the riverlands (which he is able to achieve by defeating the Stark army to his north), he can stir up discontent among Robb's vassals in the same way that Robb is doing to him, and he hopes that Robb's vassals' willingness to remain obedient to an overlord who's refusing to help them while their homes burn will break before his vassals' obedience does—especially the riverlords, who haven't had a Stark as their overlord for thousands of years unending, as the westerlords have had a Lannister, and who aren't as scared of Robb's wrath and retribution as the westerlords are of Lord Tywin ever since the fall of Tarbeck Hall and Castamere. We'll see whether it works out for him. However, this is poorer at reassuring his own bannermen that he's a strong leader, willing and able to protect them, than his canonical choice to march straight to the westerlands and confront the armies ravaging their lands; the victory will reassure them for a while, but if Robb keeps ravaging the westerlands and his strategy fails to force Robb away, they're going to get angrier and angrier. That's why he didn't do it in canon. However grand this victory may seem, it's an inferior choice from that perspective.
Why did Lord Tywin win the battle?
Let me get one thing out of the way. It is not because Lord Roose threw the battle on purpose. I don't follow the interpretation that everything would have gone wonderfully for the Starks if only people hadn't been so beastly to them and if anything goes wrong for them it must be because of treachery, not because of any bad decisions on their part. It's perfectly understandable that the Battle of the Green Fork could have been lost without any treachery. Roose Bolton betrayed Robb in canon because the Lannisters won the war (after the Battle of the Blackwater there was no realistic way the Starks or Stannis could have won against the power of the Lannister-Tyrell alliance; they simply didn't have enough men; they couldn't win even if their enemies were led really incompetently) and Robb wanted to keep fighting on. Indeed, I daresay, if Robb hadn't been in such a dire position, he wouldn't have been betrayed. It was a case of rats fleeing a sinking ship.
Now I've said what the reason isn't, let me say what it is. This is the flip side to Robb's success in his battles against Ser Jaime Lannister's army. Robb's choice to split the northern host into an almost-exclusively infantry army (with a tiny number of cavalry) and an all-cavalry army was a bold decision, and I don't mean that in a wholly flattering way; it gave great rewards and took great risks. The victories over Jaime were the reward. This was the risk. Basically, Lord Tywin used his cavalry in a manner that wasn't amazingly inventive or unpredictable; it was just ordinary, sensible, standard use of heavy cavalry, using the advantage of surprise and the weight of a charge against an unprepared infantry decision; but Lord Roose didn't have cavalry, because Robb took almost all the northern cavalry with him, so he couldn't counter it. If Lord Roose had had cavalry, Ser Addam Marbrand's detachment wouldn't have been able to cross the river and remain undetected as long as they did, because Lord Roose would have had enough cavalry to have more scouts on horseback, who can go further in a day and still return to the camp than an infantryman can. Therefore the northmen would have been prepared for the attack of the western cavalry on the north bank, with earthworks and pikes and suchlike. Well-prepared infantry can inflict a heavy toll even on heavy cavalry, as Renly Baratheon's vanguard found out to their sorrow earlier in the story. (Believe it or not, Renly's plan against Stannis in this story was drawn straight from canon. Yes, Renly really was as stupid as that. If he hadn't had such a vastly superior initial position, with knights trained and clad in expensive armour against some poor conscripted fishermen and a four-to-one advantage in numbers, he would have lost.) But I digress. So the Battle of the Banks in Knees Falling was the product of Robb's strategic mistake in canon. (Well, I say mistake. I'm not sure whether it would have been a better choice for Robb to keep his army together, or indeed to split it into more balanced forces. If he hadn't had an all-cavalry army capable of moving so quickly, he might not have been able to achieve such surprise against Jaime Lannister's army. But whether or not it was the best choice he had available to him, it's undeniable, if we are to be reasonable people, that it was an imperfect choice.) Tywin Lannister didn't do this in canon because there was never a time when it was the best possible choice; before he heard of Robb's invasion of the westerlands, the sensible thing to do was to remain in Harrenhal in his nice strong defensive position; afterwards, he chose to march westward to relieve the westerlands, not to march northward to defeat Roose Bolton.