The seating in the Great Hall had been changed; on the dais were the Starks normally sat were arranged chairs for guests and other parties not involved directly in the council. She sat in the front row beside her father, overlooking the hall a few feet below them.
The hall itself had tables and chairs arranged in a rough rectangle, a table for each Lordly House of the north, their banner men sat behind each Lordly House on benches. Behind then was a space to separate the participants from the spectators and then packed chairs for all the rest who would be present, wives, junior banner men, Manderly Knights, Guild Masters of numerous guilds, even several Maesters that were not attached to Houses in the North. Apparently Maester Walys had invited several of his colleagues to the North in the past few months, to deal with the expected burden of work that the new Lord Stark seemed to be placing upon him.
Cersei squirmed a bit in her seat, she had worn one of her more comfortable dresses, and her father had praised her for it, she still did not like the dress, to her eyes it made her look fat and frumpy, and the wool of the dress was chaffing a little. She was wearing silk undergarments, there was no way she was abandoning those for linen or wool, and around her shoulders she had a fox stole, her hair was done up in a simple, if elegant style. She wore her betrothal ring and her wedding ring and no other jewellery apart from pearl earrings; she thought she struck a reasonable balance between showing her position as Lady of Winterfell and not 'upsetting' the sensibilities of these northerners.
Father was dressed in all black leathers, but of the finest quality, and the leather was worked with lion motifs. The only splash of colour was a lion heads broach at his collar, to denote who he was, as if anyone would not know she snorted.
Ned was dressed in grey as usual, wool this time as opposed to leather, she had missed him that morning, when she had awoken, all warm and languid she had reached for him, wanting to cuddle up beside him and feel his warmth, his reassuring bulk beside her. But he was gone, and the bed was cold where he had slept, she had slid over and taken a deep breath of the furs and blankets, they smelt of him, and she had snuggled into them, inhaling his musk as she had drifted back to sleep.
She dragged her attention back to the Great Hall, it was rapidly filling up, and servants were setting out jugs and cups of small beer at each table, Ned had a cup in hand and was sipping from it. Probably his favourite 'bear island kass' as it was called, made from rye bread, though she could not stand the stuff.
His brother Benjen was at his side, a sheaf of parchments in hand, discussing something with Ned, Maester Walys was also at the Stark table, which was piled high with papers, parchments, scrolls and maps from what she could see.
There was the usual hubbub and noise as people arrived, greeted Ned, talked to friends, found out where they were sitting, and she was getting a little bored if truth be told. She wanted all this over with, wanted all these people out of Winterfell, wanted them to stop taking Ned away from her all the time.
Eventually some semblance of order was brought to the Great Hall and Maester Walys read out the rules to be followed and the orders of precedence for speaking. He removed himself from Lord Stark's table to a separate one where three scribes sat, along with glass sand timers.
Ned walked out into the middle of the Great Hall and a hush descended over the place, Cersei leaned forwards slightly in her chair without realising it.
"The North" Ned began "The North remembers! It remembers all the winters it has suffered, all the wars it has fought, all the times its sons have gone south to fight in wars, mostly wars not of its choosing. And it remembers those wars in terms of empty seats at a feast table, of fathers, brothers, sons who never returned home. And with each winter, each war, the North has bled a little more, been made a little weaker, lost some little bit more of its people. The North, my friends, is Dying! Slowly yes, by inches, but it is dying. Each year there are less hands to tend the fields, so less food can be grown, which means more die in winter, which means there are less to till the earth come spring, which means we grow less food, and on and on. We all know this, we all see this, this vicious cycle that has wrapped its hands around the throat of the North and is slowly strangling it. How many thousands of acres of good land can we not plant with crops for lack of hands to plant and tend those crops, how many villages have fallen to silence and ruin as the last person in them has perished?"
Ned paused to take a sip of his drink before he continued "We all know this, we all see this, and yet we all cannot see a way out of this for us, we despair at what we should do to halt this decline. But we must, we must halt this decline of the last bastion of the First Men will fall, will disappear, will wither away to be never seen again. Do you want that to be your legacy? A North empty of people, a desolate wilderness, where the only sound to be heard is the howling of the winds of winter? No I say, NO! We will not go gently into that long night; we will not rail, helpless against the dying of the light! NO! We will save the North, together, all of us, we will strengthen the North, bring it back to life, make it a place of peace and prosperity, make it realise its true potential. For long the south has mocked us, calling us 'backwards barbarians', NO MORE! No More I say...we will take the gifts of this great land and mould them with our sweat and blood to build something great, something strong, something to be proud of!"
Applause and cheers greeted Ned's speech; she scanned the hall to see who was most supportive of Ned. The Umber's of course, shouting and thumping their table, the rest of them behind making an equal racket.
Least supportive was Lord Bolton and his banner men, with the rest somewhere in between.
"Good speech" whispered her father "now let's see how he does with the meat..."