We tapped our cups together and drank deeply. Warm food, fine wine, a boisterous atmosphere, and excellent company; there was little more I could want in that moment.
While most of my time over the next couple of weeks (or sennights, as the locals called them) was necessarily occupied by Robb, I slowly eased my way into the day-to-day operation of Winterfell. In many ways, it wasn't too different from the various warehouse jobs I'd worked over the years. Inventory management, authorizing purchases and sales (though by 'sales' I meant sending supplies to my husband's army), personnel management, budgeting… in many ways, operating a castle wasn't too far removed from running a warehouse. Though I sorely missed digital inventories and spreadsheets. Still, I adapted well and made do with the materials that were available.
Perhaps the hardest part of running a castle, though, were the 'softer' aspects that I, as a noble lady, was now expected to oversee. Benjen was capable of managing the other aspects of running Winterfell, though the young lad seemed overwhelmed at times during our meetings. However, he was still a lad; he would much rather be out hunting in the Wolfswood than pouring over parchment and adding numbers. In addition, there were things that were both outside of his usual responsibilities, and that he was entirely unsuited for. Things like decorations, embroidering new tapestries and banners, changing the decor, repairing or ordering new furniture, and so on.
Not that I was much better; I didn't have much of a sense for interior decoration, nor for highborn fashion, so I elected to imitate the styles that were already in place. A guest room had been moth-eaten or ruined by mildew? I imitated the look of other nearby guest rooms. A tapestry had become faded? I ordered the ladies around the castle to recreate it as best as they could, rather than trying to make a new one that told a different story.
At least this way, I'd hopefully earn a few brownie points from the locals for 'preserving Northern traditions and sensibilities'. That, and outside of Catelyn's memories, I hardly knew how to decorate a noble's castle.
I'd even taken to imitating the local styles of dress. While part of it was certainly to cover for my own lack of fashion sense, and to continue to score brownie points, a large part of it was because the traditional clothing of the North was warm. Thick woolen dresses warded off the chill, while soft linen camisoles, slips, and leggings underneath the outerwear kept my skin safe from the itchy wool. The usual style included a large bonnet to keep the hair covered and dry, but that part was my least favorite aspect of Northern ladies' fashion.
'And I haven't seen a scrap of felt anywhere around the castle,' I mentally complained. 'Do they not know how to make it?'
Making felt wasn't particularly hard. It could be made from wool, or from any number of animal furs, and while the wet felting process was a bit labor intensive, it was relatively simple. A nice felt hat supplemented by a warm linen or woolen scarf would look a lot better than these silly bonnets.
'One thing at a time,' I mentally sighed. 'Let's get the textile industry up and running first.'
Speaking of which, Old Garalt's reports had been positive so far. He hadn't needed to requisition any unusual parts from a blacksmith, and so far it seemed everything was coming along nicely. He'd finished the carding machine by the end of the first week, and by his account, it worked nicely enough. The loom, being so similar in design to what he was already used to, was also finished with little trouble. It, too, was working quite nicely, or so Maester Luwin had told me.
No, it was as I suspected; the Spinning Jenny was the hardest of the three machines. While in principle, it worked the same as a spinning wheel, there were enough differences to make it a bit harder to make.
Either way, over breakfast Maester Luwin had said that Garalt had asked me to come to his shop that afternoon so I could see his progress so far. In truth, I was looking forward to it.
"A raven has come, milady," Maester Luwin interrupted my lunch.
"Where from, Maester?" I asked between bites of a succulent roast boar.
"From your Lord husband," he replied.
After wiping my hands, I took the offered letter and skimmed it. The previous letter I'd received a few weeks ago had detailed the ongoing developments in the war; the skirmishing and maneuvering between the loyalist forces and the rebels, and detailed Robert Baratheon's recovery from the wounds he'd suffered prior to the Battle of the Bells.
Catelyn had married Eddard shortly after that battle, and had been sent north to Winterfell after a few short weeks. For the entire duration of her pregnancy, the loyalists and the rebels had fought small skirmishes, raids and counter raids, and had assaulted a few castles here and there along the borders between the Riverlands and the Reach and the Crownlands. By all accounts, the loyalists forces were in disarray, thanks to the dismissal of Jon Connington, the previous Hand of the King. In addition, the rebels had been forced to deal with some loyalist houses in their ranks; the Darrys in the Riverlands, for example, were loyal followers of the Targaryens, and several small houses in the Vale had to be brought to heel.
Those ten months had been a period of consolidation as each side had dealt with threats at home, continued to muster troops and supplies, and sought to forge their armies into a cohesive force. It was inevitable, then, that a major clash would happen sooner rather than later. And clash they did; this letter detailed the events of the battle that, so Eddard had written, was coming to be known as the Battle of the Trident.
The loyalists had been reinforced by ten thousand pikemen from Dorne, the southernmost kingdom in Westeros. The rebels had blocked the loyalists' advance at a ford in the Trident. Prince Rhaegar, now leading the loyalists, had elected to launch an assault across the river. Eddard wrote that the fighting had been intense, and that at some point, Robert Baratheon and Prince Rhaegar had met in single combat in the middle of the ford. While Robert had been wounded, the prince had been killed and the loyalists' morale had been broken. Their army had shattered, a significant part of it dispersing, likely marching back to their homes, while the battered and demoralized remainder had retreated into the Crownlands.
Eddard was, at this moment, marching on King's Landing, the capital city of the Seven Kingdoms, and would soon be placing it under siege. With any luck, the war would be won before the year was out.
"This is excellent news," I said, doing my best to show happiness as I handed the letter back to Maester Luwin.
I was… reticent. My Lord husband would be returning within a year. It was… well. I wasn't exactly thrilled at the thought. Even though I had mostly come to terms with my new situation, neither I nor Catelyn knew too much about Eddard Stark. He preferred to be called Ned, was overall a rather quiet and calm man, and was said to be as honorable as the Arryns.
I, unfortunately, knew that I would have to accept my role as his wife in all ways the moment he returned. Yet, I was a man stuck in the body of a teenage girl; would I even be able to go through with it? I didn't know. The way I saw it, I had three choices; lay back and think of Lady Liberty, do my best to learn to enjoy sex as a woman, or refuse him entirely (save for the act of procreation). For the last option, well, I doubted it would be good for the marriage. While Robert Baratheon was infamous for his whoring, Eddard Stark was considered to be far too honorable for such a thing. Even if I gave him blanket permission to seek relief elsewhere, I doubted he'd follow through with it. So the question was, could I live with myself by condemning an honorable man to a nearly sexless marriage? Divorce wasn't really done in Westeros, and being sent back to Riverrun would be a major mark against the Tully family.
'I suppose when the time comes, I'll just have to… well. Do my wifely duties,' I resigned myself. 'Well, with any luck, I'll learn to enjoy it…'
That eventuality was still months away, though; perhaps between now and then, I'd have time to come to terms with it.
"It seems the war is going well," Maester Luwin commented after he finished reading the letter.
"It does," I agreed. "It would seem that the loyalists are on their last legs. If the… Old Gods are kind, this war will be over quickly."
"We can only hope," the Maester commiserated.
"Well, I'm about finished here," I said, pushing away my partially full plate. "Shall we go pay a visit to Garalt's shop?"
"Of course, my lady," he agreed.