The Riverrun was grey, smelling of pine and moss and it it had been raining without stop just for as long as the men had been arguing for three hours without resolution.
Roose Bolton stood near the entrance of the tent, apart from the rest, and listened. He had always found listening more valuable than speaking. Words spoken were words that could be used against you while silence cost nothing and gave away less.
Lord Umber had his fist on the table full of flagons and wine cups. That was how he knew things had turned serious, when the Greatjon put his fist somewhere, it stayed there until someone's jaw is broken or he is told to calm down by his liege. He was a big man and a loud one and not, in Roose's estimation, a particularly complicated one. "I'll not bend the knee to any Targaryen," he was saying it, for perhaps the fourth time since he had entered the tent. "Stark or Targaryen, bastard or not, I don't care whose blood runs in the boy's veins. The North has a king, we swore to him." He said pointing to Robb Stark sitting silently, wearing crown on his head, an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. He had been the first to proclaim Robb King in the North, and he would take no slight to the honor of his new-made sovereign.
"We swore to Robb Stark," Lord Bracken said in nod to Lord Umber's word. "And we will not kneel to his cousin."
"Cousin." Umber said it like a curse. "Half the realm may call him prince or king, it changes nothing. The Targaryens burned Rickard Stark alive in his own armor, and Brandon strangled himself trying to save him. They-"
"Aerys burned Lord Stark." Lord Blackwood interrupted wearing his magnificent raven-feather cloak, talking precise as always, the kind of man who corrected facts the way father corrected their children, relentlessly and with the conviction that it was doing them good. "Aerys is dead and neither his son or his grandsire light the fire."
"He carries the same blood," Umber roared back in fury.
"His mother was a Stark." Blackwood tried again with familial approach trying to soothe the matters and resolve the war, that Roose now could see clearly. Tytos was tired of fighting and had resolved himself for peace under Targaryen terms rather than the Lannisters, that Roose now understood. "Lyanna Stark, by every account is Ned Stark's own sister. And blood matters Lord Umber, the boy's blood should matters to Starks as much as it does to mine. For House Blackwood is kin too Targaryen King by both side of his family."
That silenced Umber for a moment, though as Roose thought not for long. He let his gaze move across the tent. He did it slowly, the way he did most things, unhurried, giving nothing away. Lord Robett Glover was standing with his arms crossed and his mouth in a hard line, the expression of a man who had already decided on the matters and would follow whichever way the current ran strongest, a craven through and through. "The Targaryen can go back to wherever he came from," Glover said. "We have no need of him."
"Aye, my lord." A voice came in mockery, Lord Jason Mallister white of hair with his winged helm in the crook of his arm began, like some grim specter with his shiny black mail and purple cloak on him, his narrow face pinched and cold. "And what of Sansa Stark held hostage under Dragon for breaking the guest right, trying to poison not just the person offered bread and salt but her own brothers too."
"Or when the Ironborns almost laid with your wife, in your bed, at Deepwood Motte, your ancestral hall." Blackwood said dryly.
Glover's face darkened at the words of the two lord. "That was below you, my lords."
"Perhaps, but it is not untrue." Blackwood countered.
"And letter claiming Sansa's action may be a ploy by the dragon whelp." Glover started again.
"You dare call my father a liar," Ser Wendel Manderly asked sharply. "My house has been nothing but loyal to House Stark, Lord Robett."
Near the tent's center, in the camp chair that had become his throne now that the great hall of Riverrun was full of men and women, Robb Stark was watching the argument with the particular expression Roose had come to know well, the set jaw, the quiet eyes, the look of a young man trying to appear older than he was and succeeding more often than he had any right to, the Stark look.
He was a good king, for his age. Brave, certainly, loyal to his men. But loyalty was a weakness in a king, in Roose's view, the same way a fondness for wine was a weakness, manageable in small quantities, ruinous in excess.
Robb had said nothing yet on the matter of his cousin, for the count of insults had far crossed thousands now. That was interesting, Lady Stark sat to his right, her hands folded in her lap, her face arranged in an expression of serene patience that Roose did not believe for a moment. She wanted something, she had always wanted something, first her husband then her daughters. Beside her sat Lord Edmure Tully, leaning back in his chair with the small, satisfied smile of a man watching a fire he has started from a comfortable distance.
The smile irritated Roose, less for what it meant about the war than for what it meant about the future of his House. Certainty, in Roose's experience, was usually the last emotion a fool felt before reality corrected him. They think they've already won the argument, he thought. They think the boy will follow his mother. He was sure the King had followed his mother's advice.
Robett Glover had begun again, louder now, and what emerged was less argument than testament. "I'll say what no one else here will say plainly, the Targaryens are a cursed line. Mad kings and dead princes and their lust has harmed Westeros more than any. Even if this boy is everything they claim, Rhaegar's son, Lyanna's son, trueborn and rightful and all the rest, what does that mean for the North? We fought to be free of the Iron Throne. We bled for it." His voice had dropped, which made it carry further. "We came south to free our liege and his daughters. We have two of them, I say we make a deal with the Targaryen to leave the North independent to Starks in return of King's sister. If not, then he face swords of North and the Riverlands."
Several men murmured agreement, many Riverland lords did not, Roose noted. He stood with his hands behind his back and said nothing. The mountain clan chieftains Wull, Norrey, the others were clustered together near the tent's far corner, keeping their own counsel. They had no love for Targaryens, but they wanted no part of this argument either, they did not want to fight war against a boy with stark's blood, Roose concluded.
Ned Stark said nothing, that was the strangest part of it. He sat at the end of the table like a man carved from the same grey stone as Winterfell's walls, his eyes moving between the speakers, his face giving away nothing, giving away everything. He had not looked well since the news came. He had not looked well, in Roose's estimation, since the moment he had learned of Robb's crowning, since the news came of House Arryn's fall, his sister's son, his blood, the child he had kept silent about for fourteen years and kept silent about still, because Ned Stark was many things and a man who broke his oaths was not among them, and whatever oath he had sworn to his sister in Dorne was still binding him.
Ned Stark would not help him or hinder him. Lord Umber had begun again, he was a man who did not tire of his own opinions and Roose stopped listening to the words and listened instead to the current by noting lords faces. Anger on one side, calculation on the other, grief somewhere in the middle. Edmure's smile had not moved, Catelyn's hands had not moved. Robb Stark's jaw had tightened slightly, which meant someone had said something that stung. "-sooner make a pact with the Others than bend the knee to a dragon's whelp-"
Lord Blackwood spoke quietly at that. "There are things worse than Targaryens, Lord Umber. Best think before you speak, whether you are bending the knee or not."
"I did not take for a man, a follower of old gods, to be a craven who can't even hear horror stories of nans," Umber said aggressively, "you ought to be sitting behind your castle walls then Lord Blackwood, if you can't digest tales."
"I am minding what matters, that is your lives. Which is more than I can say for everyone in this tent." Lord Tytos Blackwood said, his voice filled with reproach.
The mountain men murmured among themselves. Norrey leaned close to Wull and said something that made the other man grunt. Roose caught a word, independence. Independence, a beautiful dream, the way all the worst ideas were beautiful. An independent North, free of dragon and lion alike, master of its own cold destiny. He had heard men speak of it before, the way men hope of a warm spring after a hard winter with longing, and without much thought for the actual logistics.
They did not consider the Tyrells. They did not consider what happened when the grain stopped coming north, when the gold stopped moving, when the roads went unwatched and the ports went untended and the winter that old spoke arrived with its full weight behind it. The North could not feed itself through a long winter. Roose knew it, the Greatjon and other lords, to their credit, probably knew it too, though knowing it and admitting it were different things. Fools, he thought, with the mild contempt he reserved for men who let feeling govern sense. Dumb, brave, northern fools.
He turned his attention deliberately, as if by accident, to the far side of the tent. The man representing House Dustin had not spoken since coming inside the tent, he stood together with his men who watched more than they talked and kept his face as empty as Roose kept his own. He noted it. A man who did not take sides in a room full of men choosing sides was either very wise or had already chosen, and nothing about this Dustin suggested wise. Beside him, the Ryswell men were similarly still, similarly watching. They had not allied themselves with the Umber faction, nor with Blackwood's peaceful counsel. They had simply abstained. Interesting, Roose looked at them a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
Then he looked away as he became aware, of being watched in return. He turned his head slightly, not quickly, he never moved quickly for it attracted unwanted attention, and across the length of the tent he found Black Walder Frey's eyes already on him. Black Walder was not his father's most pleasant son, but he was among the sharpest, which counted for rather more in present circumstances. He was looking at Roose the way a man looks at a partner in a transaction that has not yet been concluded but that both parties expect will be. Roose let his hand rest, briefly, against his jerkin. Just for a moment and long enough. He felt the shape of the letter there. Parchment and wax that had changed the numbers of this entire war. The Lannisters were practical people, whatever else you said of them. They understood that victory was a matter of numbers and timing, not honor, and they offered gifts accordingly.
Black Walder's mouth twitched noticing his actions, not in a smile, exactly. But in more of an acknowledgment. Roose looked away again, the argument continued.
Lord Bracken was red in the face now, which was what happened when Lord Bracken felt he was being ignored, he got louder instead of smarter. Blackwood was still making his case for speaking with the Targaryen, still talking about the Lannisters in the Riverlands and the supply lines and the strategic value of a third party with an army and a dragon, all sound points that no one particularly wanted to hear because they were complicated and required the suppression of feelings of past, which was not something northern lords did well. The North remembers.
Edmure's smile finally turned wide, almost splitting his face in half. It seemed he had not anticipated quite convincing, a loud Umber could be, Robb Stark looked at his mother and she looked back at him. Something passed between them that convinced Roose of an opportunity coming to raise his House standing and it was the only thing that bothered him not than anything else that had happened this evening. He filed everything else for the next war. Outside, the wind had picked up off the river, carrying cold winds. Winter is Coming, Starks had said. Roose breathed in the smell of rain and decided the fate of enemies, and thought about a letter folded against his ribs, and waited. He was very good at waiting and wait he would to fulfill the dream of Red Kings of old, flayed Starks in their crypts and the North under Bolton flag.
The chamber was colder than anything she had felt while travelling, which was a mercy that Lady Larra Blackmont felt since coming here. She spread the map on the table herself and did not wait for servants to do it. There were moments for ceremony and moments for speed, and the news that she heard last had made a shortage of the former. "House Blackmont has mustered three thousand men, my lord," she said. She kept her voice even, though she could feel tremor in fear of the threat approaching. "With the men of House Fowler and House Yronwood already sailed for the Stormlands, it will be difficult to hold Ser Gerold and his company of invaders, the Golden Company."
Lord Edric Dayne looked at the map with the careful attention of a boy of ten who had perhaps learned that looking carefully was half of appearing capable. He was a sweet-faced child, a fellow lord in status, she feared for the young lords life, now being threatened by his ambitious kin. She had seen things like this happen before and she hoped it would not occur to him.
"Prince Doran has promised us," he began, his voice still carrying boyish shrill. "that House Targaryen will-"
"I do not trust the Targaryen." That was Jynessa, her daughter. Larra did not sigh, though she permitted herself to take a deep breath. Her daughter had her father's tongue, which was always, quick and sharp and not always aimed at the thing it was meant to hit. Something she had taken from her father for he had never hit her spot when in bed.
Jynessa stood with her arms folded, leaning against the far wall, the posture that said she already knew the result of coming war and the rest of the room was merely full of fools. "There is no army nearby to call to," she said, and her voice had the light mocking edge that Larra had spent years trying to train her out of, especially when speaking to her betters. "The Targaryen prince sits far away, while our Houses faces extinction by hands of Essosi invaders no less."
"The Targaryen king," Edric said, and there was something in his voice now that had not been there before, a steadiness, a heat below the surface that Larra had not thought he carried, "saved Prince Oberyn from the lion's den. When Kings Landing would have kept him for a trophy, King Aemon took that risk and brought him out alive." He paused, his chin had come up slightly. "I have faith in him, my lady. He is my milk brother, my uncle pledged his life in service to him and his family. I did not know Ser Arthur in person, but I have learned of him enough to know he must not have given his loyalty cheaply." The room was quiet for a moment.
Jynessa opened her mouth in retort. "Emotions," she said, with the careful patience, as if explaining a simpleton "should not rule your mind when you are ruling, my lord. Milk brotherhood is a sentiment. Three thousand men are a fact, the enemy marches through our passes are a fact. Sentiment does not hold a castle nor do they save lives of your smallfolk."
"Neither," Edric said, "does abandoning the only ally who has promised to come."
Jynessa's eyes narrowed. Larra watched her daughter calculate and rolling her eyes, as if what the boy spoke were beneath her consideration. Larra looked at the map. House Blackmont's, she had sailed with three thousand of her men, to protect Starfall heeding Prince Doran call.
She looked at the passes that lead to Starfall, passes that Ser Gerold Dayne and his Golden Company column were marching to, ten thousand swords under a banner to lay claim he had no right to. The Fowler forces were gone as were the Yronwood forces, now marching to Stoemsland. The nearest Dornish strength was at Sandstone, and that was far.
"Doran Martell does not make promises he does not mean," she said, not to Jynessa but to the room, to herself, to whatever god was listening. "That is one of his virtue and his most appreciated one." She traced the mountain road on the map with one finger. "If the Targaryen king has been sent word, and Prince Doran assured me word was sent, then what we must determine is not whether he will come, but whether he will come in time."
"And if he does not?" Jynessa asked, reality settling in.
"Then we hold as long as we can and treat for terms, and we do not blame anyone for the loss." Larra pulled her hand back from the map. "We have done this before."
Edric was quiet, which she had come to understand was his way of thinking. The boy also thought more than he spoke, which was unusual in a boy his age, spoke well and was well mannered. His aunt had raised him mostly, Allyria Dayne, though the boy seemed close to her milk mother too, the woman who nursed him, Wylla.
"He will come," Edric said at last in certainty. His certainty was not bluff that she initially thought, it was belief, and there was a difference, and Larra, who had been watching people perform lie for all her life, could still tell the two apart. Jynessa drew breath to answer him when the roar hit the chamber, that she felt her legs quiver.
It was not a sound from inside the building, it rolled through the walls and the stone and the small high window that looked out to the river Torentine, and it stopped every voice in the room in an instant, the way a clap of thunder stops every bird in the sky. Larra was on her feet before she had another thought. Jynessa had gone still, whatever she'd been about to say was gone. Then sound of boots slamming on stone came and the door opened and a man in House Dayne's blazon burst through it with sweat on his face and the wide eyes of someone who had seen something his brain was still catching up with.
He looked at Edric, remembered, barely, to bow his head first. "My lord." He was breathing hard. "King Aemon has arrived." The chamber held the words for a moment, and Larra looked at the map, and the passes on it, and her daughter, and she thought, Perhaps sentiment holds castle walls after all. She did not say it aloud, she saved that for after the war. But she let herself think it, Brotherhood of milk brother.