To an outsider, indeed even to most people the Godswood would have seemed quiet, only the rustling of the leaves and the odd sigh of the breeze through the tree tops to disturb the deep silence of the place.
But to Old Nan the place was not silent, not still, to her the Godswood was alive with the whispers and mumblings of the Old gods, as she sat before the weirwood, her eyes closed and her ears open.
She came here often, sometimes as much as once a day, to listen and relax, to feel the voices of creation itself sooth her old, tired bones. She had lived a long, long life, not necessarily a happy one, but then life was a wounding, for sorrows and pain were part of all life. Her great sorrow, her great regret was that none of her children, or their children had been born with her gift, none could hear what she heard, none could see what she could see. She was the last of her line it seemed, save for a few others on the Isle of Faces, who could still hear the Old Gods. Oh the North still worshipped the Old Gods, but few, if any, heard the voices, and fewer still could understand what they had to say.
For it took great patience to listen to the Old Gods, as they babbled incoherently, like listening to hundreds of voices all talking at once, a cacophony of sound and meaning that one had to concentrate on to have any hope of understanding. Voices, whispers, even sometimes visions bubbled and faded, leapt up and retreated, as she sat there, blind to the outside world.
Her own mother had taught her, and her mother before her, generation after generation they had heard the call of the Old Gods, understood their place in the world. Mostly women, though a few men now and then, but all gone now, their voices fled the earth to merge with the voices of the Old Gods, to live with the Old Gods in the weirwoods.
Sometimes what the Old Gods said was meaningless, sometimes it was bizarre, twisted into incomprehensibility, and sometimes, rarely, it made absolute sense. Old Nan listened intently to the streams of sound, concentrating to see if the Old Gods would grant her some wisdom, some answers to the questions that she sought.
She had watched her Lord return from the Rebellion, mounted astride a horse, with lordly crimson beside him, a father and daughter, each equally a paragon of haughty, southern nobility. She had kept her eyes on the two Lannister's, for despite her age there was nothing wrong with her sight. She knew them for what they were, powerful, ambitious, greedy – the sort that the North had no use for. Not now, and not ever, and yet here they were, the father laden with the promise of rivers of gold to fall upon the North and the daughter shining with the promise of her beauty and a belly to be filled with Stark sons.
And behind those promises, darkness, and a price to pay, a price in blood and honour, a price the North should not have to pay. Was her young Lord's head turned by the power and coin of the father and the pert teats and golden mane of the daughter?
And what of the Stark himself? She had remembered the boy who had left to foster in the Eyrie, a shy youth, slim and pensive. What had returned was no more a youth, even though Lord Stark was still young, he was in no ways a youth. No, her Lord came back a man, a warrior, a great fighter, and yet she sensed something else, something that frightened her. To her old eyes Lord Stark shone with a harsh light, radiated a power that was unyielding, cruel even. The Lannister's basked in his glow, letting it soak into them, especially the daughter, greedily drinking of her Lords power.
Something had happened to the lad in his years in the south, something that she was not sure of, something, something had entered the Lord of Winterfell, bound itself to him, something that she did not recognise. She was determined to know, was it southron sorcery? Hah! The Andal's denied magic, despite the evidence of it being all around them, shut their eyes and ears to the songs of the earth, instead straining to hear words from dead statues. Or maybe some magic from beyond the sea's, from the strange east or the terrifying south?
Whatever it was it made her Lord strong, that much was obvious, she knew the tales of his exploits during the rebellion, had even been shown them on occasion by the voices of the Old Gods themselves. She had seen him, striding across battlefields, soaked in the blood of his enemies, slaughtering all who stood before him, a terrible rage filling him. Seen him lead armies to victory after victory, heard the cries and lamentations of the women of his foes.
But to what end had this, this magic, settled upon her Lord, to what purpose? Old Nan had shivered when she had asked herself that question, fear had clawed at her very soul, for she could think of only one reason, and one reason alone.
For she knew that the olden blood magic of the Starks blood was the only thing keeping the Other's quiescent and dormant beyond the Wall. The only thing keeping the horrors of the Long Night sleeping their long sleep of defeat, but yet dreaming their dreams of hatred and conquest.
These Lannister's had weak blood she knew, southron blood, poisoned by generations of Andal idolatry, what would become of Stark blood once it was diluted by the thin blood of this golden chit that her Lord was to marry? Would the blood still be enough? Would this strange power that had been poured into the vessel of her Lord strengthen the blood of the Starks or weaken it? Would the blood of his children with his pretty little southron wife be able to fulfil its duty, to keep the terrible pact that the Starks had made millennia ago, or would the Long Night come again, this time to sweep all life from the land forever?