CATELYN
They carried the corpses in upon their shoulders and laid them beneath the dais. A silence fell across the torchlit hall, and in the quiet Catelyn could hear Grey Wind howling half a castle away. He smells the blood, she thought, through stone wal s and wooden doors, through night and rain, he still knows the scent of death and ruin.
She stood at Robb’s left hand beside the high seat, and for a moment felt almost as if she were looking down at her own dead, at Bran and Rickon. These boys had been much older, but death had shrunken them. Naked and wet, they seemed such little things, so still it was hard to remember them living.
The blond boy had been trying to grow a beard. Pale yellow peach fuzz covered his cheeks and jaw above the red ruin the knife had made of his throat. His long golden hair was still wet, as if he had been pul ed from a bath. By the look of him, he had died peacefully, perhaps in sleep, but his brown-haired cousin had fought for life. His arms bore slashes where he’d tried to block the blades, and red still trickled slowly from the stab wounds that covered his chest and belly and back like so many tongueless mouths, though the rain had washed him almost clean.
Robb had donned his crown before coming to the hal , and the bronze shone darkly in the torchlight. Shadows hid his eyes as he looked upon the dead. Does he see Bran and Rickon as wel ? She might have wept, but there were no tears left in her. The dead boys were pale from long imprisonment, and both had been fair; against their smooth white skin, the blood was shockingly red, unbearable to look upon. Will they lay Sansa down naked beneath the Iron Throne after they have killed her?
Will her skin seem as white, her blood as red? From outside came the steady wash of rain and the restless howling of a wolf.
Her brother Edmure stood to Robb’s right, one hand upon the back of his father’s seat, his face still puffy from sleep. They had woken him as they had her, pounding on his door in the black of night to yank him rudely from his dreams. Were they good dreams, brother? Do you dream of sunlight and laughter and a maiden’s kisses? I pray you do. Her own dreams were dark and laced with terrors.
Robb’s captains and lords bannermen stood about the hall, some mailed and armed, others in various states of dishevelment and undress. Ser Raynald and his uncle Ser Rolph were among them, but Robb had seen fit to spare his queen this ugliness. The Crag is not far from Casterly Rock, Catelyn recalled. Jeyne may well have played with these boys when all of them were children.
She looked down again upon the corpses of the squires Tion Frey and Willem Lannister, and waited for her son to speak.
It seemed a very long time before Robb lifted his eyes from the bloody dead. “Smalljon,” he said, “tel your father to bring them in.” Wordless, Smalljon Umber turned to obey, his steps echoing in the great stone hall.
As the Greatjon marched his prisoners through the doors, Catelyn made note of how some other men stepped back to give them room, as if treason could somehow be passed by a touch, a glance, a cough. The captors and the captives looked much alike; big men, every one, with thick beards and long hair. Two of the Greatjon’s men were wounded, and three of their prisoners.
Only the fact that some had spears and others empty scabbards served to set them apart. Al were clad in mail hauberks or shirts of sewn rings, with heavy boots and thick cloaks, some of wool and some of fur. The north is hard and cold, and has no mercy, Ned had told her when she first came to Winterfell a thousand years ago.
“Five,” said Robb when the prisoners stood before him, wet and silent. “Is that all of them?”
“There were eight,” rumbled the Greatjon. “We killed two taking them, and a third is dying now.”
Robb studied the faces of the captives. “It required eight of you to kill two unarmed squires.” Edmure Tully spoke up. “They murdered two of my men as wel , to get into the tower. Delp and Elwood.”
“It was no murder, ser,” said Lord Rickard Karstark, no more discomfited by the ropes about his wrists than by the blood that trickled down his face. “Any man who steps between a father and his vengeance asks for death.”
His words rang against Catelyn’s ears, harsh and cruel as the pounding of a war drum. Her throat was dry as bone. I did this. These two boys died so my daughters might live.
“I saw your sons die, that night in the Whispering Wood,” Robb told Lord Karstark. “Tion Frey did not kil Torrhen. Willem Lannister did not slay Eddard. How then can you call this vengeance? This was fol y, and bloody murder. Your sons died honorably on a battlefield, with swords in their hands.”
“They died,” said Rickard Karstark, yielding no inch of ground. “The Kingslayer cut them down. These two were of his ilk. Only blood can pay for blood.”
“The blood of children?” Robb pointed at the corpses. “How old were they? Twelve, thirteen?
Squires.”
“Squires die in every battle.”
“Die fighting, yes. Tion Frey and Willem Lannister gave up their swords in the Whispering Wood. They were captives, locked in a cell, asleep, unarmed... boys. Look at them!” Lord Karstark looked instead at Catelyn. “Tell your mother to look at them,” he said. “She slew them, as much as I.”
Catelyn put a hand on the back of Robb’s seat. The hall seemed to spin about her. She felt as though she might retch.
“My mother had naught to do with this,” Robb said angrily. “This was your work. Your murder.
Your treason.”
“How can it be treason to kill Lannisters, when it is not treason to free them?” asked Karstark harshly. “Has Your Grace forgotten that we are at war with Casterly Rock? In war you kill your enemies. Didn’t your father teach you that, boy?”
“Boy?” The Greatjon dealt Rickard Karstark a buffet with a mailed fist that sent the other lord to his knees.
“Leave him!” Robb’s voice rang with command. Umber stepped back away from the captive.
Lord Karstark spit out a broken tooth. “Yes, Lord Umber, leave me to the king. He means to give me a scolding before he forgives me. That’s how he deals with treason, our King in the North.” He smiled a wet red smile. “or should I cal you the King Who Lost the North, Your Grace?”
The Greatjon snatched a spear from the man beside him and jerked it to his shoulder. “Let me spit him, sire. Let me open his belly so we can see the color of his guts.” The doors of the hal crashed open, and the Blackfish entered with water running from his cloak and helm. Tul y men-at-arms followed him in, while outside lightning cracked across the sky and a hard black rain pounded against the stones of Riverrun. Ser Brynden removed his helm and went to one knee. “Your Grace,” was al he said, but the grimness of his tone spoke volumes.
“I will hear Ser Brynden privily, in the audience chamber.” Robb rose to his feet. “Greatjon, keep Lord Karstark here til I return, and hang the other seven.” The Greatjon lowered the spear. “Even the dead ones?”
“Yes. I will not have such fouling my lord uncle’s rivers. Let them feed the crows.” One of the captives dropped to his knees. “Mercy, sire. I killed no one, I only stood at the door to watch for guards.”
Robb considered that a moment. “Did you know what Lord Rickard intended? Did you see the knives drawn? Did you hear the shouts, the screams, the cries for mercy?”
“Aye, I did, but I took no part. I was only the watcher, I swear it. .”
“Lord Umber,” said Robb, “this one was only the watcher. Hang him last, so he may watch the others die. Mother, Uncle, with me, if you please.” He turned away as the Greatjon’s men closed upon the prisoners and drove them from the hal at spearpoint. Outside the thunder crashed and boomed, so loud it sounded as if the castle were coming down about their ears. Is this the sound of a kingdom falling? Catelyn wondered.
It was dark within the audience chamber, but at least the sound of the thunder was muffled by another thickness of wal . A servant entered with an oil lamp to light the fire, but Robb sent him away and kept the lamp. There were tables and chairs, but only Edmure sat, and he rose again when he realized that the others had remained standing. Robb took off his crown and placed it on the table before him.
The Blackfish shut the door. “The Karstarks are gone.”
“All?” Was it anger or despair that thickened Robb’s voice like that? Even Catelyn was not certain.
“All the fighting men,” Ser Brynden replied. “A few camp fol owers and serving men were left with their wounded. We questioned as many as we needed, to be certain of the truth. They started leaving at nightfall, stealing off in ones and twos at first, and then in larger groups. The wounded men and servants were told to keep the campfires lit so no one would know they’d gone, but once the rains began it didn’t matter.”
“Will they re-form, away from Riverrun?” asked Robb.
“No. They’ve scattered, hunting. Lord Karstark has sworn to give the hand of his maiden daughter to any man highborn or low who brings him the head of the Kingslayer.” Gods be good. Catelyn felt ill again.
“Near three hundred riders and twice as many mounts, melted away in the night.” Robb rubbed his temples, where the crown had left its mark in the soft skin above his ears. “All the mounted strength of Karhold, lost.”
Lost by me. By me, may the gods forgive me. Catelyn did not need to be a soldier to grasp the trap Robb was in. For the moment he held the riverlands, but his kingdom was surrounded by enemies to every side but east, where Lysa sat aloof on her mountaintop. Even the Trident was scarce secure so long as the Lord of the Crossing withheld his allegiance. And now to lose the Karstarks as wel ...
“No word of this must leave Riverrun,” her brother Edmure said. “Lord Tywin would... the Lannisters pay their debts, they are always saying that. Mother have mercy, when he hears.” Sansa. Catelyn’s nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms, so hard did she close her hand.
Robb gave Edmure a look that chilled. “Would you make me a liar as well as a murderer, Uncle?”
“We need speak no falsehood. Only say nothing. Bury the boys and hold our tongues till the war’s done. Willem was son to Ser Kevan Lannister, and Lord Tywin’s nephew. Tion was Lady Genna’s, and a Frey. We must keep the news from the Twins as well, until...”
“Until we can bring the murdered dead back to life?” said Brynden Blackfish sharply. “The truth escaped with the Karstarks, Edmure. It is too late for such games.”
“I owe their fathers truth,” said Robb. “And justice. I owe them that as well.” He gazed at his crown, the dark gleam of bronze, the circle of iron swords. “Lord Rickard defied me. Betrayed me. I have no choice but to condemn him. Gods know what the Karstark foot with Roose Bolton will do when they hear I’ve executed their liege for a traitor. Bolton must be warned.”
“Lord Karstark’s heir was at Harrenhal as well,” Ser Brynden reminded him. “The eldest son, the one the Lannisters took captive on the Green Fork.”
“Harrion. His name is Harrion.” Robb laughed bitterly. “A king had best know the names of his enemies, don’t you think?”
The Blackfish looked at him shrewdly. “You know that for a certainty? That this will make young Karstark your enemy?”
“What else would he be? I am about to kill his father, he’s not like to thank me.”
“He might. There are sons who hate their fathers, and in a stroke you will make him Lord of Karhold.”
Robb shook his head. “Even if Harrion were that sort, he could never openly forgive his father’s killer. His own men would turn on him. These are northmen, Uncle. The north remembers.”
“Pardon him, then,” urged Edmure Tully.
Robb stared at him in frank disbelief.