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Robb received White Harbor's reply the next day and learned that Lord Wyman had dealt with Maester Theomore. The maester, however, had already sent out his final piece of information.
Earlier that day, Crey had taken Harrol to the maester's tower in Winterfell and seized the now-useless spy in the rookery.
After the two men confirmed each other's accounts, Robb was certain there were no other hidden spies inside Winterfell. At last, the internal informants had been cleaned out.
As for spies outside Winterfell, like Varys's little birds, they were weeds. Pull up one batch, and another would grow back.
So long as they could not pass along anything important, Robb chose to ignore them for now.
The information about the servant Harrol had come from Torrhen. Before he died, Torrhen had told his brother.
Perhaps in those final moments, the jealousy in his heart and the whispers of whatever power had tempted him had vanished. Perhaps, awake at last, he had wanted to use that information to keep his brother from being dragged down by his betrayal.
That was one of the reasons Robb had been willing to help hide the secret of Torrhen's treachery.
Thinking back to what Torrhen had said on the southern wall of King's Landing, about dreams that repeated again and again and a strange crow appearing in those dreams to tempt him, Robb understood one thing.
This had to be another filthy trick from the three-eyed crow that had once trapped him inside a dream.
He did not understand why the crow had targeted him so relentlessly, but Robb had made up his mind. This time, he would deal with the three-eyed crow and the petty schemes it seemed so fond of.
In his memory, the thing most closely tied to the three-eyed crow was the symbol of the North's faith in the old gods: the heart tree.
At first, he had assumed heart trees were simply weirwoods. After consulting Maester Luwin, he learned the difference.
Although weirwoods had almost disappeared south of the Neck after widespread felling, they were still found throughout the North.
But not every weirwood could be called a heart tree.
Only when descendants of the First Men who still held to the old gods carved a weeping, blood-red human face into a weirwood through their sacred rites did it become a heart tree, a tree before which believers could pray to the old gods.
As King in the North, Robb naturally could not order every heart tree in the North cut down if he wanted to keep his rule stable.
Back aboard the Wind Witch, while he had been turning the problem over and over, he remembered a small mistake from his previous life.
Bubble, bubble!
Inside one of the kitchens of Winterfell's inner keep, Gendry was stirring a steaming cauldron with a large iron ladle.
Because Robb needed to try something, he had already sent all the kitchen servants away.
"Your Grace, should I keep adding more?"
Gendry wiped the sweat from his face and turned to ask Robb.
"Keep adding more."
At Robb's nod, Gendry dipped the iron ladle into the wooden tub beside him, scooped up a large amount of coarse white crystals, and poured them into the cauldron.
As Gendry kept adding coarse salt to the pot, the memory of that old mistake from Robb's previous life surfaced in his mind.
Back then, he had accidentally used highly concentrated brine, clear as water, to water flowers. In just two days, the plants had withered and died.
That was why he thought that, although heart trees in this world were somewhat special, the method should still have an effect as long as they were plants.
When no more chunks of coarse salt would dissolve in the boiling water, Robb called in Dacey, who had been standing guard outside the kitchen, and had her and Gendry quietly pour the whole pot of concentrated brine around the roots of the massive heart tree in Winterfell's godswood.
If the results were obvious after a few days, Robb would have his trusted guards use the same method to kill every known heart tree in the North.
After more than a month away from Winterfell, Robb had a great deal of governing work waiting for him.
Before anything else, he calculated and distributed the compensation owed to the sixteen Winterfell horsemen who had died in King's Landing.
Each surviving family received two gold dragons, and each man's name was entered into the Warriors' Crypt so his family could receive the privileges owed to them.
Robb had given only two gold dragons, not because he was stingy, but because it was enough for the families to live on for a long time. Giving them more would not necessarily be a good thing.
In this age, wealth without the strength to protect it could easily become a disaster.
The lords of the North had already gone to Winterfell's military camp to make the final arrangements for the army and prepare for the march south.
Robb, tied down by some pre-war planning and unable to leave for the camp, had Crey carry a handwritten letter to Theon and the other commanders, instructing them to complete the preparations according to his plan.
He was in the council hall with Maester Luwin, working through which battlefield treatment methods to include now that the battlefield healer corps had been expanded into a formal unit, when Jory, who had always been calm, stumbled into the hall.
The moment he saw Robb, Jory cried, "Your Grace, Lord Eddard... has come home!"
In Winterfell's training yard, travel-worn Yoren stood with a group of Night's Watch recruits, all of them silent with their heads bowed.
When Robb hurried into the yard with Jory, the rest of House Stark had already arrived.
On the transport wagon was a battered wooden coffin. At the sight of it, Catelyn bit her lip hard, tears streaming down her face. Sansa and Rickon were already sobbing aloud, unable to speak.
Bran, carried on Hodor's back, wore a calm, almost cold expression, as if he had already seen too much life and death.
Robb strode to the coffin in a few steps and reached out to open it. When Yoren saw this, he came forward and said quietly, "My lord... Your Grace, you had best prepare yourself."
Yoren's gaze shifted toward Catelyn and Sansa.
"Robb, open it," Catelyn said firmly. "Let us see him one last time."
Robb had hesitated after Yoren's warning, wondering whether the family behind him would be able to bear it once the coffin was open. Hearing his mother's words, he said nothing more.
Creak.
With one hand, Robb pushed open the battered wooden coffin.
The journey from King's Landing to Winterfell had taken more than a month. Although Yoren had treated Eddard's body on the road to slow the decay and keep the insects away, the body was still almost unrecognizable. Only a faint trace of what he had once looked like remained, and even that was thanks to the colder weather the farther north they had traveled.
Robb drew a deep breath and steadied himself. Then he turned to Catelyn, who was staring straight at Eddard's body, and to Sansa beside her, who had shut her eyes because she could not bear to look.
"Mother, I will have someone restore Father's face and body as best they can. Then we will hold a funeral for him."
"No," Catelyn said, still staring at Eddard's body as tears fell from her eyes. She shook her head and refused Robb's suggestion. "Ned never liked such things. This will be his funeral. Let him go straight into the family crypts."
It was true. Eddard had never been a man who liked grand ceremonies.
When Robert had held the Hand's tourney in his honor, Eddard had thought it too expensive and useless, and had wanted it canceled.
Robb had no time to thank Yoren for bringing the body all the way back from King's Landing. He could only give the man a nod.
Then, using only his own strength, he shouldered Eddard's wooden coffin alone and walked step by step toward Winterfell's crypts.
Catelyn and the others followed closely behind him, their steps heavy as they made their way toward the crypts.
Behind them, Yoren watched the family leaning on one another and murmured, "Lord Eddard, you're home."
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