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In King's Landing, the coronation of Tommen I proceeded without incident.
Perhaps Joffrey had served as the perfect contrast.
After the ceremony, Tommen wore a gentle smile and greeted the nobles and smallfolk gathered near the Great Sept of Baelor with polite warmth. Whether nobles of King's Landing or common spectators, most were satisfied with the courteous young king. Praise followed him wherever he turned.
After the coronation came the feast.
Harps, pipes, and other instruments filled the hall with courtly music. Fine food and wine were laid out in abundance. The great lords and highborn guests gathered in groups to talk and drink, while others danced in ordered sets, renewing ties as if the wars outside the city had been forgotten.
They looked like people in a realm at peace.
Tywin refused several nobles who wanted his attention and carried a cup of wine to Olenna Tyrell, who was enjoying the food.
"Lady Olenna, what did you think of His Grace Tommen today?"
"As you said," Olenna replied. "He is gentle. A good king, if guided well."
"Everything I told you was true." Tywin went straight to the matter. "When will you send troops into the Westerlands?"
Olenna stopped eating and looked up at him.
"When I return to Highgarden, our preparations will be nearly complete. But the Westerlands are your own lands. Naturally, you must attack Deep Den first and draw the main northern army's attention. Only then will we strike Crakehall from the Ocean Road and Lannisport from the sea."
Compared with Robb's main army, which she did not understand and which had defeated Tywin again and again, Olenna preferred the ironborn. Hatred and familiarity went hand in hand.
And because Tywin was a clever man, she chose to speak plainly now rather than hide behind excuses later.
"You are right," Tywin said, looking as if her demand were only natural. "Once I am ready, I will personally lead an army against Deep Den and draw Robb Stark's main force. After your house defeats the Greyjoys, we can close around him."
"Good. Then one more thing. The entire Dornish Marches will belong to the Kingdom of the Reach."
Tywin's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Your son Mace already bears the title Defender of the Marches."
"Lord Tywin," Olenna said mildly, "you understand what I mean."
The Dornish Marches were not a formal administrative region. Grasslands, plains, wild country, and marshes stretched for hundreds of miles there, forming the buffer between the Reach, the Stormlands, and Dorne. For more than a thousand years, the three kingdoms had fought over that land.
After Dorne entered the Seven Kingdoms, the wars had faded, and in name the Tyrells of Highgarden guarded the marches.
In practice, the land remained divided among Stormlander and Dornish nobles.
Olenna meant to use Tywin's need to make that nominal authority real.
If the Reach, with its grain, gold, one hundred thousand soldiers, and the Redwyne fleet, held the Dornish Marches as a southeastern shield, it would have no defensive weakness. Neither the Stormlands, Dorne, nor a wounded Westerlands would be able to threaten it.
Tywin thought quickly.
"The Stormlands have submitted to the Iron Throne. I will find a way to have them yield their portions. Dorne is still in civil strife and will not surrender land easily."
He paused only briefly.
"Very well. After the northern army is dealt with, I will lead an army with you to take the Dornish Marches."
"Since the Stormlands are settled, have them transfer control of their parts of the Marches to the Reach before we march. As proof of sincerity."
Olenna had played politics for far too long to be tricked by empty words.
Tywin clenched his jaw.
"When you return to Highgarden, prepare men to take possession. Before your army enters the war, you will be satisfied."
"Excellent."
Olenna's smile became radiant. She lifted her wine cup.
"To the future of our houses."
"To the future."
Tywin touched his cup to hers and drank deeply.
Olenna took only a small sip, watching the western lion she had forced to bend.
"Lady Olenna, His Grace seems to need me. I will excuse myself."
"Of course."
Tywin turned away. The ugly look on his face vanished the moment his back was to her, replaced by calm, and then by the faintest smile.
In the Westerlands, the northern army reached Ashemark.
Ashemark stood in a flat valley among the western hills. Robb's soldiers had marched three days from Sarsfield to reach it.
The castle's garrison was not large, and the surrounding hills still held enough timber. Even though Robb and Bloodwind could now break a city gate alone, soldiers still needed practice.
Robb gave command of the battle to Crey, who had long served as an intelligence officer and staff adviser.
Cautious by nature, Crey immediately ordered the logistics troops and infantry to cut trees and build siege equipment.
In only two days, more than ten thousand northern soldiers produced countless ladders, several crude battering rams, and stationary catapults.
When Crey looked as if he wanted to begin building siege towers as well, Robb covered his face and stopped him.
There was a difference between caution and wasting time.
After Robb patiently explained that war required judgment as well as preparation, Crey left thoughtfully and formally took command of the assault.
Once the battle began, Robb did not interfere. He took the Wolfguard to a secluded cliff behind the army, intending to watch.
Before he arrived, Wyl had already led the Wolfguard ahead to inspect the path and remove danger. Hidden enemies, snakes, and even rats had been cleared away.
Bloodwind's pack had matured under the blood pact's influence. The blood-kin wolves were smaller than Nymeria and Lady, but with Wolfguard riders on their backs, their fighting power was not inferior.
Recently, perhaps because Robb had assigned more blood pact points to the pack, Nymeria, Lady, and more than half of the female blood-kin wolves had shown signs of entering heat again.
Robb had noticed the signs and already sent a raven from Sarsfield to Winterfell, asking Catelyn to have men capture more large gray wolves in the Wolfswood and send them to Riverrun.
The thought of Bloodwind's pack multiplying again excited him.
With the blood pact ensuring the survival of the pups, the wolf-rider force he had imagined was drawing closer.
When Robb reached the cliff, the assault on Ashemark began.
At the sound of horns, an assault formation of at least five thousand northern soldiers advanced with wooden shields, ladders, and battering rams.
The defenders on Ashemark's walls loosed together. Arrows arced downward, but the wooden shields blunted most of the damage.
Thrum. Thrum.
The Westerlands were wealthy indeed. Nearly every castle had at least two scorpions on its walls.
No wooden shield could stop those giant bolts. Shields shattered. Several northern soldiers were pierced through and strung together by the heavy shafts.
The catapults in the northern camp began their work at the same time, throwing great stones toward the walls and the castle interior.
Crey had not built them primarily to kill. They were meant to strike at the defenders' morale and help his men reach the walls.
Any normal man who saw a massive stone howling toward him would flinch or dodge. Every defender who looked away, ducked, or lost focus fired fewer arrows.
The effect proved real.
After Ashemark's first volley, the defenders fell into scattered, hurried shooting.
Under the thinning rain of arrows, the assault formation reached the walls quickly and spread with discipline. Ladders went up. Archers shot upward to cover the climbers. Behind them, the battering rams crept toward the gate.
The five thousand men assaulting Ashemark were mostly former Westerlands and Stormlands prisoners. Under the lure of rich rewards for being first over the wall, these men who could now be called northern soldiers climbed through falling stones and boiling oil with fierce determination.
Because the Westerlands castles had too few defenders, northern soldiers began reaching the crenels before the battering rams even reached the gate.
The first men over gained little. They were swallowed by defenders at once. But as more gaps opened in the defense, northern soldiers began to hold their ground on the wall.
When the battering rams reached the gate and began striking it with heavy booms, unease spread among the defenders. No one knew when the gate would burst.
Soon one breach on the wall widened fully. More northern soldiers poured in like a tide.
The Ashemark defenders, already short of men, could not seal it.
Some of the wiser soldiers threw down their weapons and knelt.
Once a few men surrendered, more followed.
In the end, Lord Damon Marbrand of Ashemark had no choice but to admit defeat.
When Robb saw the direwolf banner flying over Ashemark, he sent Bloodwind a thought and left the cliff.
As Robb rode Bloodwind into the castle, the surrendered soldiers and hidden smallfolk cried out in fear, awe, and shock.
Robb had long grown used to such sounds.
But Ashemark was different from the other castles he had taken.
Among the corpses and wounded, a large group of women in gray robes moved quietly. Black veils covered all but their eyes, and the seven-pointed star marked their robes.
Silent Sisters.
They served the Stranger, taking vows of chastity and silence, and they prepared the dead without payment.
Their presence surprised Robb, but his attention was drawn instead to the smaller group of women moving among them in white robes, carrying wooden boxes of medical supplies.
His gaze settled on one nurse.
She had long black hair and a graceful, dignified face. Blood covered her cheeks and hands as she worked beneath the eaves of a house whose roof held a massive catapult stone. She was stitching a deep wound in an enemy soldier's waist with absolute concentration.
She was...
Perhaps because his soul had merged with Robb Stark's, his heart suddenly beat faster when he recognized her.
It felt like the first crush of the boy he had once been.
Crack.
Boom.
The eaves above the black-haired nurse broke under the weight of the stone. The roof and the rock began to fall toward her and the wounded man beneath.
Soldiers, smallfolk, and other nurses cried out.
A white blur shot forward.
A huge half-dome of ice appeared over the nurse and the wounded man, wrapping them inside.
Wood, tile, and stone smashed against the crystal shield and bounced away. A long crack appeared across the ice, but it held.
Robb nodded inwardly. Its strength was about what he had expected.
Then he looked beside Bloodwind.
The black-haired nurse had not moved at all. She calmly continued stitching the wound, her bloodstained hands steady. It was not an act.
"Done," she said at last. "Carry him away."
Two northern soldiers looked to Robb for permission. When he nodded, they carried off the unconscious enemy soldier.
"I saved you," Robb said with sudden interest as the nurse stood with her bloody hands raised and prepared to leave. "Should you not thank me?"
The black-haired nurse turned back. She gave a polite curtsy before answering.
"Your Grace, this war was begun by you, and that stone was thrown by your order. You did not save me. At most, you chose not to kill me."
A trace of shock entered her eyes when she looked over Bloodwind's white mist and Robb's ice-bright eyes, but her expression remained calm.
"First, whether I began this war is not the important part. The important part is that I won it.
"Second, your logic is nonsense. If a farmer grows a potato and sells it to you, and you choke on it by accident, did that farmer kill you?"
Normally, Robb would not have bothered with such an argument. Yet somehow, he found himself debating with her.
The nurse gave a soft laugh.
"I did not expect Your Grace to be skilled in sophistry as well as war. Forgive me, but I have no time to debate. Many wounded still need me."
She turned to leave.
The more Robb looked at her, the more he felt she was distinctive, graceful, and beautiful.
Beauty was a personal thing. Men could agree on ugliness, but every eye loved something different.
The black-haired nurse might not have been the greatest beauty in any court, yet in Robb's eyes, she seemed more beautiful than any woman he had seen.
An impulse rose in him as she walked away.
"What is your name?"
"Talisa."
She seemed not to hear him at first. Then, after several more steps, she stopped and answered without turning back.
Yes.
This black-haired nurse was Talisa Maegyr.
In his previous life, she had been the root cause of Robb breaking his oath to House Frey and dying at the Red Wedding.
As if by fate, they had met again in the Westerlands.
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