Chapter Text
Riverrun felt all the emptier now that Petyr was gone, and many of the men to Harrenhal to compete. Catelyn wished she could have attended. She and Lysa would have enjoyed it, she was sure. It would have been good to take her mind off that stupid duel.
It was Lysa who took Petyr’s absence the hardest. She had been absolutely devoted to nursing him back to health, and the maester had praised her attentive care. “She will make a fine mother one day, no doubt,” he said, and Lysa glowed with happiness at the praise. It was the happiest Catelyn saw her sister for several weeks.
“I just wish he could have stayed,” Lysa said. Only in private; it would not do for their father to hear of any such sentiment from them.
Her father was angry all the time these days. At Petyr, for sure, he cursed Petyr’s name. His temper filled all of Riverrun. Lysa and her uncle got the worst of it, but not even Edmure and Catelyn could escape it entirely.
“You know he could not have,” Catelyn replied. She feared that Lysa cared not for that. “Not after what happened. Father had to send him away.” Sometimes she wondered if people of their station ever got to do as they wanted. Betimes it felt as if her life was written out by the obligations of pride.
It didn’t bring much comfort to Lysa. Catelyn wondered briefly if Lysa’s feelings for Petyr had been other than sisterly. If so, she had never said anything of it to Catelyn, and she would have known that any match between them was utterly impossible. After the duel, even more so.
In the end she went to her uncle for advice, though Uncle Brynden had been quarrelling with her father himself about matters neither of them had explained to her. “I just don’t know what to say to her,” Catelyn confessed.
“There’s nothing you can say, Cat, not that I can think of.” He sighed. “I have to leave here myself soon.”
“What?” Catelyn asked. “Why?”
“Your father,” Brynden said. “He insists that I marry, too.”
“So you’re leaving?” Catelyn didn’t understand. “But –“
“Cat. I do not wish to wed. I’m sure the Redwyne girl your father has picked out for me is a fine girl, but I do not want to marry her. I will not marry her.” He sighed. “It’s different for me. I have my sword and my knighthood to protect me. You and your sister have nothing.”
Uncertain, Catelyn said, “It is how it is.” She didn’t mind having to marry Brandon. Even after all that had happened with Petyr, she could bear it.
“You’re a strong woman, little Cat,” her uncle said. “But not everyone can be as strong as you are, and not in the same way. I believe that you could be a good lady and a good wife even if you despised your husband. It is not in me to be a good husband to a woman I do not want, and I have the means to refuse and to leave. So that is what I plan to do.”
It was as much of an admission of weakness as Catelyn had ever heard from her uncle. Since she was a little girl, there had been little her Uncle Brynden had seemed incapable of. When her mother had died, it had been Brynden Tully who had been strong for their small family. “Even if it means leaving Father?”
“Even then.” Her uncle’s mouth was set into a hard line, and anger glinted in his eyes. “It’s his stubbornness that has brought it to this point.” With visible effort, he smiled at her. “I am leaving Riverrun, not the Tullys. If you or your sister, in particular, ever have need of me, I will be there if I can. I know what it’s like for your father to arrange your life for you.”
Catelyn thought about it. “Be there for Lysa, uncle,” she said. Lysa was why she had gone to her uncle in the first place. “I can bear it.”
“I thought you’d say as much,” her uncle sighed. “Just in case, Cat. Know that I love you and your brother too.”
The next day Uncle Brynden was gone, without an official farewell, and Riverrun sunk further into gloom.
---
It was not completely rational, but Catelyn couldn’t help but feel that something worse was going to come. It felt like those days after her mother’s last stillbirth, when everyone knew that Minisa Tully would die soon, but not whether it would be today or tomorrow or the day after. As the days went on and still nothing bad happened, she started to feel foolish.
Her father was still angry. There was no Petyr, no Uncle Brynden. Lysa was still miserable. Brandon’s return and her own wedding looked very far away. For the first time, Catelyn almost looked forward to leaving Riverrun.
Eventually men came home from Harrenhal, bearing the scandalous news that when Prince Rhaegar had won the tourney, he had ridden straight past his wife Princess Elia to give the Queen of Love and Beauty’s crown to the unwed-but-betrothed Lyanna Stark.
“That’s so romantic,” Lysa sighed. “Like something from a song.” Catelyn could tell her heart wasn’t quite in it, but for her sister’s sake refrained from asking her, yet again, if she was well.
Besides, Catelyn disagreed. “Not so romantic,” she said. “Think of poor Princess Elia.” How humiliating that must have been for her.
Rumour had it that Robert Baratheon, Lyanna Stark’s betrothed, was furious. Catelyn made no claims to know Brandon particularly well (yet), but she knew him enough to know that he would be indignant too.
The other, lesser scandal was the matter of Jaime Lannister. It transpired that he had been sent back to King’s Landing almost the instant the white cloak was fastened around his shoulders. It was said that Gerold Hightower had offered to return in Ser Jaime’s place, so that the young man could compete for the first time as a knight of the Kingsguard, but Aerys had refused.
That bit of news made Hoster Tully snort and shake his head. “Aerys plays a dangerous game,” he told Catelyn later, quietly, privately. “Tywin Lannister is not one to see his favoured son toyed with so. More than that, half the realm knows that he wanted his daughter betrothed to Rhaegar and Aerys rejected the match.”
“What does it mean?” Catelyn asked. A low hum of anxiety spread throughout her. Her father had raised her for loyalty. Family, duty, honour. He had never spoken so of the king before.
“Nothing,” Lord Hoster said, and forced a smile. “I rely on you too much as it is, little Cat, and with my damned stubborn brother gone, I tell you far more than I should.”
“You’ve told me so since I was nine years old,” she reminded him.
“So I have.” Her father’s smile became more genuine then. “I will be sorry to give you to Brandon Stark.”
“I will be sorry to leave,” Catelyn replied. It was true. However unhappy her family was right now, it was still true. “But I feel I can look forward to wedding Brandon as well.”
That made her father laugh, the first time in weeks that she’d heard him do so. “That’s a bit of a contradiction, my girl. I hope you find the time to send me ravens, but a new household will keep you busy, especially one so large as Winterfell.”
“Is there any word from him?” Catelyn asked. “Lord Brandon, that is.”
“He is on his way,” Lord Hoster said. “I believe he is staying with the Mallisters at the moment, and Lord Arryn’s heir with him. Lady Lyanna is travelling separately from him and their lord father; she should be here within a week or two.”
“Before Brandon?”
She did not know how she felt about spending time with Lady Lyanna without her brother present. They would likely have to coexist at Winterfell for a time, until Lyanna was wed to Lord Baratheon, and Catelyn knew little of the other woman. Brandon loved his sister very much, of that she was sure. His voice and his eyes had been fond whenever he had spoken of her.
“Yes, before Lord Brandon. I believe she intends to help you with the wedding preparations.” Another smile. “It would not be right for you to do it all yourself.”
“The help would be appreciated,” Catelyn said. Lysa could be unreliable, sometimes. Lately even more so.
Not that she said that to Lysa.
“It’s really happening,” Lysa said as they brushed their hair out that evening. “You’re really getting married.”
“Yes,” Catelyn said. “It had to happen someday.”
“You’ll be leaving.”
“Yes,” Catelyn said again, not sure where Lysa was going with this. “But won’t you like being the lady of Riverrun?” Not officially, of course. Someone still had to do the work. With their father not inclined to remarry and Edmure too young for a wife of his own, that would be Lysa.
Lysa shook her head. “Father doesn’t trust me like he trusts you. He just wants to marry me off as fast as he can.”
“Has he spoken to you about it?” Catelyn asked practically. With Jaime Lannister now unavailable, their father would have to find someone else for Lysa. There was not a chance they would be as choice a match as the handsome, dashing former heir to Casterly Rock.
But Lysa was weeping, great fat tears rolling down her face.
Catelyn put down her hairbrush and went to Lysa’s side. “It’s all right,” she said, feeling inadequate. “Father will make a good match for you. He loves you.”
“I don’t want to be alone here,” Lysa sobbed. “Don’t go, Cat, don’t go.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Catelyn said. Tears pricked at her own eyes. “I haven’t ever had a choice. I can’t refuse to marry Brandon.”
“Uncle Brynden refused.”
“I’m not Uncle.” I have my sword and my knighthood, her uncle had said. You and your sister have nothing. “It’s not for a few weeks yet.”
“That’s so soon,” Lysa wailed.
“But hardly sudden. We’ve had years to get used to it.” Catelyn worried late at night about leaving Riverrun, about what would happen if she couldn’t make her marriage to Brandon work, about Winterfell. It was easier to be strong when Lysa needed her. Lysa would have to leave Riverrun one day too.
One day. Catelyn’s day was but a few weeks from now. She tried to console her sister and tried not to show how worried she was.
---
The day the bad news came began much like any other. Catelyn went about her duties, Lysa and Edmure about their lessons. Lyanna Stark had not arrived yet, though they expected her any day. If she were much later, Brandon would beat her here.
The first indication she had that anything was amiss outside the walls of Riverrun was, once again, when her father summoned her.
“What is it, Father?” she asked.
“Ill news,” he said. “Lyanna Stark has been abducted somewhere near Harrenhal.”
“What?”
“It’s worse than you think,” her father said grimly. “It was not common bandits who took her, but Rhaegar Targaryen himself.”
“What?”
“Indeed. This is far beyond a crown of roses for the girl while his wife looked on. This could mean war, if Aerys handles this amiss.”
“Lady Lyanna is betrothed,” Catelyn remembered. “To Lord Baratheon, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That young man is not known for his temperate outlook on political affairs. Rickard Stark is no hothead, but he cannot allow his daughter’s abduction to pass quietly either.”
There was one more thing – no, two more things. “And you?” Catelyn asked.
Her father sighed. “Lady Lyanna was my guest and travelling in my lands. My roads ought to be safe to travel; I work hard to keep the peace in the Riverlands; I do not like even a prince of the realm breaking it.”
“What do you plan to do?” He had to do something, that was clear.
“I would see what the Starks plan to do, first, and how Aerys responds to their accusations. Nobody seems to know where Prince Rhaegar might have gone.”
Her father had never been explicit about it, but from several comments over the past few years – including what he had said just now – she knew he had little faith in Aerys’ ability to govern. Nor was Catelyn blind to the wider implications. Abducting Lyanna Stark from the Riverlands was a grave insult to the Starks and the Baratheons, and a lesser but still serious one to her own family. The Martells of Dorne would not look kindly on what had happened either. Lord Lannister had ample cause to be displeased with King Aerys too.
All told, Catelyn could see that Aerys’ list of allies amongst the great houses was short and growing shorter.
It actually could mean war.
“Does Brandon know?” she asked. The other thing.
Her father sighed again, more deeply than the last time. “He likely knows by now,” he said. “Another young hothead. I pray the gods that he doesn’t do anything foolish.”
She would pray too.
Catelyn went to the sept with a heavy heart. Whether or not Brandon did something rash, as her father feared he would, this could well delay their wedding. Catelyn wanted to be married and done with it, after that terrible duel. And she wanted to pray for Lyanna Stark. It would be cold of Robert Baratheon to spurn her after she had been raped, but men did prefer their brides to be maids on the wedding night. Or so Catelyn had always been told.
The thought of war, however, was almost too big for her to comprehend. Hoster Tully had settled many a dispute over the years while Catelyn and her siblings waited behind at Riverrun. The closest she had been to any sort of military action was when her father took them all to Seagard to visit Lord Mallister after the Ironborn raiding season.
It was not there yet, she told herself. A glance to the image of the Warrior reassured her slightly. Prayer always did comfort her.
It was only just over a week before the worse news came.
The maester handed the message to Lord Hoster during lunch. As Catelyn, Lysa, and Edmure all looked on curiously, their father read the note, then drained his wine goblet and slammed it down on the table.
“Come with me, Cat,” he ordered, and Catelyn knew it was about Brandon.
When they reached his solar, Hoster did not speak immediately, instead pacing back and forward in some distress. Catelyn did her best to wait patiently. Her heart was beating fast, and she could not stop herself from wringing her hands.
“That gallant fool,” her father said eventually. He’d gone red in the face, as he did when he was well and truly wroth. “That hotheaded young idiot! Was he thinking with anything but his sword?”
Catelyn said nothing while her father continued to pace. Eventually, he spoke again. “Your betrothed,” he began, practically spitting the word, “upon hearing what had befallen his sister, found himself some equally noble, equally stupid friends, and rode to King’s Landing.”
He paused again, paced some more, and cursed a few times. “When he got there, he and his merry band of dunderheads rode up to the Red Keep and started shouting that Prince Rhaegar should come out to die for his crimes against the Lady Lyanna.” Another pause, some more cursing. Catelyn noted absently that she was twisting her hands so hard her fingers were turning white. “Aerys, it seems, dredged up enough love for his son to have Brandon and all his companions arrested for treason and their fathers all called to court to stand trial along with their sons for their crimes.”
Her father turned to her and said bluntly, “I hope you do not have your heart absolutely set on Brandon Stark, little Cat, because he may not survive his bout of chivalry.”
“I –“ Catelyn tried to say, but her voice failed her. “It – it is a trial,” she managed. “He will have his chance to prove his innocence before gods and men. Won’t he?”
“Yes, of course,” Lord Hoster said, “but there is always a risk with this sort of thing. Rickard Stark has been summoned for trial as well. You could find yourself the Lady of Winterfell sooner than anticipated.”
Catelyn looked at the floor, and with an effort, moved her hands to her sides. “This is a mess, isn’t it?”
“Very much so, little Cat,” her father said. “Very much so. I never thought there would be so much trouble involved in marrying off my daughters. You may go, Cat. If you tell your brother and sister anything of this, try not to scare them too badly.”
---
“Are you scared?” Lysa asked.
“Of course I’m scared,” Catelyn admitted. “Brandon might die.”
“He’s good with a sword.” Lysa’s voice had more than a trace of bitterness in it. The duel was not so long ago. The memories were still fresh and red as the blood that had poured out of Petyr’s belly when Brandon sliced him open.
“It’s not like that,” Catelyn said. “He might have to duel one of the Kingsguard for his innocence.” And she didn’t know if Brandon was that good with a sword.
Lysa hesitated. “Do you know what will happen if he does get killed?”
Catelyn thought about it. “Brandon has two brothers,” she said. She had not met either of them. The next youngest, she thought, was only a little older than she was, and the youngest only a little younger than Lysa. “Father will probably want me to marry one of them.”
She’d prefer Brandon. She knew him, a bit. She had got used to him. To the thought of marrying him. He had worn her favour. She had almost finished embroidering her maiden’s cloak, by all the gods. How many times over the last few years had she imagined Brandon taking it off and replacing it with his own?
She didn’t want this. She didn’t know what to do. There was nothing she could do. Even if she were a man she wouldn’t ride to the Red Keep and demand Brandon’s release. It hadn’t helped Brandon, after all.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Catelyn said. Lysa didn’t look convinced. Catelyn didn’t feel convinced.
Over the next few weeks, Catelyn discovered that worry and fear could burn slow. They could eat away at her bit by bit, never incapacitating her, but making each day an ordeal. Every raven flying overhead sent a stab of more intense feeling through her breast. Life went on, and so did anxiety.
When at last her father summoned her again to his solar, it was almost a relief.
Almost. The instant she saw her father’s face she knew.
“No,” she said. “No, no, it can’t be.”
“It can, little Cat,” her father said. “It is. Brandon Stark is dead.”
“No,” she repeated. She felt tears well up in her eyes. “No.”
Her father crossed the room to embrace her and she sobbed into his shoulder. “There, there, my Cat,” he said, as if she was a little girl and not a woman grown. “There, there.”
---
After she had calmed herself, she thought to ask more fully what had happened. She sat in the chair across from her father’s desk, trying her best to look composed. Her eyes were itchy, sore, and she suspected they were bloodshot as well.
You hardly knew him, Catelyn Tully, she reminded herself. But she couldn’t help it. It was herself she wept for as much as him. Brandon was dead and she would still have to marry. Marry someone she didn’t know at all, had never met, didn’t think was handsome maybe. She had once told Lysa that she would wed whomever Father told her to wed. It was Lysa who had been right. It was much harder now that she knew it would not be Brandon who gave her a wife’s cloak.
Her father didn’t say anything until Catelyn was ready to speak. “What happened?” she asked at last, and didn’t stumble over the words.
“They areall dead,” Hoster Tully told her. “Every man Aerys arrested for treason and their fathers as well, save for Brandon’s squire, a Northman by the name of Glover, I believe. They were not given the trials they were entitled to. Aerys simply executed them all.”
Catelyn froze in her seat. “Rickard Stark as well? Lord Arryn’s heir? Jeffory Mallister?”
“All of them.”
“That’s insanity,” Catelyn said. It made no sense. Brandon couldn’t be dead, and it couldn’t have been all without trials. “Why would King Aerys do such a thing?”
“Who knows why madmen do anything?” Lord Hoster asked grimly. “That’s not all.” He pushed a piece of parchment across his desk to Catelyn. “It attaints Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark as traitors and calls for them to go to King’s Landing as well,” he said as Catelyn scanned the letter. “Lord Arryn probably has his own copy of this by now.”
“Lord Arryn?” Catelyn felt numb, now. If murdering Lord Stark and his heir was insanity, this was no better. It might even be worse.
“Yes, both the new Lord Stark and Robert Baratheon were fostered with him. Last I heard, Robert Baratheon was still in the Vale. I don’t know about Eddard Stark.”
“In the Vale too, I think,” Catelyn said. “Brandon told me his brother and Lord Robert were going back to the Eyrie after the tourney at Harrenhal, and then they were going to come here together.” For Brandon’s wedding. My wedding.
Her father nodded. “Thank you, Cat. That makes sense.”
“Will Lord Arryn hand them over to the king?”
“Not a chance in any of the seven hells. Those two were his wards. He won’t betray that trust.”
Catelyn pushed the letter back to her father. “So what happens now?” she asked.
“War,” he said. It was going to happen, then. Brandon was dead and there was going to be a war. “I don’t know exactly when or how the fighting will begin, but Arryn won’t stand for Aerys trying to kill his wards, and the new Lord Stark cannot let Aerys kill his father and brother without trial while Rhaegar rapes his sister. Lord Baratheon already wanted blood for what happened to Lady Lyanna. The alliance is already in place.”
“And you?” Father had betrothed her to Brandon for a reason. House Stark and House Tully were to be allies, he had said. If the Starks were going to war…
“I will ally with them,” Lord Hoster said. “Though I would have you married first, and hopefully your sister as well. I will see you Lady of Winterfell, I promise you.”
“Thank you, father,” she said. She had thanked him when he first arranged her marriage to Brandon, now she thanked him when Brandon died. He wanted the best for her.
“Now, Cat, dry your eyes and wash your face. I have need of you.” He reached across and squeezed her hand. “I must call the banners and you must stock my larders. There will be war in these Riverlands soon enough.”
---
“What’s going on?” Lysa asked that night. Catelyn had retired late, but her sister was still awake. “I couldn’t find you all afternoon. You missed dinner. So did Father.”
“I was talking to the stewards,” Catelyn said. She had talked to the stewards for a long time. The tail end of winter was a bad time to need a great deal of food. And all the many other things Riverrun would need for a war. It would take a while for their coffers to recover.
“But all afternoon?”
“Yes.” Catelyn flopped back on her pillows and stared up at the ceiling. The moonlight was dim tonight, making all the shadows thick and deep. “Brandon was murdered,” she said. “Lord Rickard too. Father says there’s going to be a war.”
It was easier to say in the dark. She didn’t have to see Lysa’s face as her sister sat bolt upright. “A war?” Lysa said, voice shaky. “Against?”
“The king. The king was the one who murdered Lord Rickard and Brandon. He wants to kill Brandon’s brother, and Lord Baratheon.”
“Oh gods,” Lysa said. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Catelyn replied.
“What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did.” How big would the war get? Would there be fighting here, or near them? Would their uncle come back, would their father go to battle? Would she and Lysa be married off quickly to cement alliances for their house?
That, at least, seemed likely.
It was some weeks before the raven from Lord Stark arrived. Lord Eddard Stark. Not Rickard, not Brandon.
“Read it for yourself, Cat,” her father said. He looked pleased enough.
The letter explained in neat writing and clipped sentences that the writer was unattached. He was content to take his brother’s place and wed Lord Tully’s elder daughter, so that the arrangement between his late father and Lord Tully might be fulfilled. He found an alliance with House Tully most desirable in these troubled times. He would be willing to marry the lady immediately upon his arrival at Riverrun – if, of course, he was welcome.
Whether Catelyn was equally content there was not a mention. It didn’t matter. She didn’t have a choice. It was war.
Besides, if she wed Lord Stark, she would buy her father the swords of that house. She hadn’t thought about it like that before. If she did, she might be able to come to terms with it.
“Well?” her father asked.
“This is good,” she said. “I have no objections.”
She left imagining what Eddard Stark would look like. Younger, but with the same bold features and brilliant smile. If Eddard Stark was anything like his brother, Catelyn was sure she could get used to him eventually as well.
In the meantime, war in Riverrun was not like she had expected. She had been under the impression that war involved battles, and the Riverlands had seen none yet. “It will come here eventually,” her father said gravely, as she and Lysa and Edmure listened. “Robert Baratheon cuts his way through the Reach, while Jon Arryn marches his armies down from the Vale and Eddard Stark from the North. They will all meet here, and the Targaryens will follow after.”
“Which side are we on?” Edmure asked.
“At the moment, neither, officially,” Lord Hoster told his heir. “Soon we will be rebels.”
Edmure nodded. “Why?”
“Aerys Targaryen had the last Lord Stark killed, when he had promised to give him a trial instead. He did not get his rightful chance to prove his innocence or his son’s innocence. That is not the sort of thing a king should do.”
“Why did Lord Stark need a trial? Had he done something bad?”
“No, but his son Brandon – you remember Lord Brandon, who was to wed your sister? – did something very foolish. Now, he did that foolish thing because he loved his own sister very much, and because Aerys’ son had done something very bad to her. He deserved to have his complaints heard, but Aerys killed him too, and all the men who went with him. Some of those men were Mallisters, our own bannermen.”
There was silence at the table while Edmure tried to absorb all that. He was still only a little boy.
“Now,” their father said, when he judged Edmure had processed sufficiently, “the rebels – Lord Arryn, the new Lord Stark, and Lord Baratheon – have offered a good marriage for your sister Catelyn, and I may be able to get a good marriage for your sister Lysa as well. Both sides need our swords, and not only can the rebels give us more for them, but our bannermen would have us support the rebels as well.”
Catelyn glanced at Lysa at that statement. It was the first her father had said about arranging a match for her sister, especially so soon. By the shocked, sick look on Lysa’s face, it was the first she had heard of it too.
“Can you tell me why the war started?” Lord Hoster asked Edmure.
“The king did bad things and our bannermen want us to rebel too,” Edmure said dutifully. He knew how their father’s lessons went.
“Close enough.”
“Father –“ Lysa began.
“Not now,” their father said, and shot Lysa a quelling glance. Lysa quieted immediately. Soon afterwards, Lysa made her excuses and left the table, leaving Catelyn none the wiser about what was going on.
---
A letter came for her from Petyr soon afterwards. The maester handed it to her privately, saying that he would defer to her judgment as to whether her father should be told. He trusted her, she could see it in his eyes.
A letter from Petyr, so soon after Brandon's death. He must have heard. He must want something from her. But she was to wed Eddard Stark. There was nothing she could give him. There was nothing she wanted to give him. She did not love Petyr as he loved her. She did not want to marry him any more than she wanted to marry Eddard Stark.
She did not know if she could forgive him for that stupid duel.
It might be cruel of her to be angry with him for it, when he was the one who had had his belly sliced open by her betrothed, but she had never asked for him to do anything of the sort. It was the last thing she wanted. If he loved her at all, she thought, he would have listened to her. He would have listened to her, let her wed Brandon, and stayed here in Riverrun. It would have saved them all a lot of grief. Not just her, but Lysa and Edmure as well.
And her personal feelings about Petyr and his actions aside, she was to wed Eddard Stark.
She burned the letter, unopened and unread. She told her father what she had done, and he nodded approvingly when he heard.
---
At last the day came when the first outriders of the Northern army came to Riverrun. There was fighting in the south of the Riverlands now. Storm’s End was under siege and there were ten thousand Dornishmen marching to the aid of the Targaryens (none too eagerly, her father reported). And Catelyn would soon be wed.
The outriders were followed by the host itself, assured that they would find a welcome on Hoster Tully’s lands. It was not just the Northmen who came, either. When Catelyn went to look, she saw the moon-and-falcon of the Arryns alongside the direwolf of Stark. Behind them were scattered scores of unfamiliar banners.
How could the Targaryens hope to stand against this, she wondered as she gazed out over the camps. She had never seen so many men in the one place before. Yet when she repeated the thought to her father, he said that even counting his own men and the Baratheon forces trying to link up with them all, they were outnumbered by the royalists.
But she put the matter out of her mind. She had a feast to arrange. Several feasts, in fact. One of them would be for her own wedding.
It seemed a hundred years ago she had expected Lyanna Stark to be helping her with this. And she had never thought that Riverrun would be the centre of an army camp while she tried to arrange for wedding flowers.
Catelyn had hoped to get at least a glimpse of, and preferably an introduction to, her soon-to-be husband when he arrived. Instead he and Lord Arryn immediately marched off to her father’s solar for a lengthy discussion.
“Do you know what they’re talking about?” Lysa asked her. She had been avoiding their father since he had mentioned the possibility of her marriage, and silent when circumstances forced her to spend time in his presence.
“What else?” Catelyn asked. “The war.”
She was anxious too. The man she would marry was in her father’s solar. Tomorrow, perhaps the day after, they would say their vows. And after that –
It was so close now.
Three hours after Lord Stark had arrived at Riverrun, Catelyn was summoned to her father’s solar. Her heart was beating fast, faster than it had when she had met Brandon five years ago. She knew more of what a wife was and what marriage meant now than she had then.
Catelyn knocked, then entered.
There were two men seated across from Lord Hoster. They stood when they saw her. Both quickly smoothed unhappy expressions from their faces.
“Catelyn,” her father said, “This is Lord Jon Arryn and Lord Eddard Stark.”
She curtsied. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, my lords,” she said.
Lord Eddard…was related to Brandon. That much could be said of his looks. He had the same dark brown hair and cool grey eyes. He was shorter, plainer, and less muscular than his brother. He had a long face and a short beard. The set of his jaw, the tightness of his lips, and the sharp downwards draw of his eyebrows made Catelyn think that he had probably never been happy in his life.
Even as she looked at him his expression became colder. She was disappointed – and she realized that he could see it in her face. Catelyn immediately put on her best and prettiest smile, though under that icy grey stare it felt horribly insincere.
“Lady Catelyn,” Jon Arryn said. “It is our pleasure.”
She had hardly spared Lord Arryn a glance. He was old. Older by far than her father. Whatever colour his hair had once been, it was now iron grey. Skin hung loose at his neck and wrists. His eyes, however, were still bright and alert, and his movements were spry.
“Lady Catelyn,” Eddard Stark echoed. Nothing more.
“I have called for your sister as well,” her father said. “You are both to be married in two days.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Catelyn replied, as warmly as she could. Lysa married too? She wondered whether to ask to whom. Inside she felt like shriveling up from embarrassment. She would have to spend the rest of her life with Eddard Stark, and she could never do that moment again. There were more important things than a man’s looks. She had always been taught that.
Still, he just wasn’t as handsome as his brother.
“Is there anything my lords would like me to arrange for?” she asked, to cover up the awkward moment.
Eddard Stark shook his head. Hoster Tully said, “No, thank you, Catelyn. You’ve done quite enough already.”
Lysa arrived then, edging around the solar door and into view. “Father? You asked for me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have important news for you, Lysa. You are to marry Lord Arryn, here.”
Lysa went white as her eyes flew to Lord Arryn. Catelyn felt a sting of sympathy. Her own introduction to Lord Eddard now looked ideal by comparison. “Oh,” she said. To their credit, both Lord Eddard and Lord Arryn kept their composure. “May I ask when?”
“Two days from now.”
“Oh,” Lysa said again, faintly. “So soon.” She curtsied to Lord Arryn, her eyes directed at the floor. “My lord.”
Lord Arryn inclined his head to her. “My lady.”
“Father,” Catelyn interrupted, concerned that Lysa might start to cry right then and there, “May we be excused? Lysa and I must prepare.” Eddard Stark could wait. She hadn’t expected to have to arrange Lysa’s wedding as well as her own. Such short notice.
As Catelyn ushered Lysa out, she heard her father murmur an apology, and Lord Arryn reply “I hardly expect a maid of fifteen years to be overjoyed at the prospect of wedding me, my lord.”
Eddard Stark said nothing.
As soon as Catelyn and Lysa were back in the safety of their chambers, Lysa lost her composure entirely. Her tears flowed uncontrollably down her face and she stuffed her fist in her mouth to stifle her sobs. Catelyn sat next to her in silence.
“I knew it,” Lysa said, once she could speak again. “I knew Father would do this.” She had not stopped weeping. Catelyn had sent for some well-watered wine and coaxed her to drink at least a little. “I knew it. He doesn’t want me to be happy.”
Catelyn did not know what to say to that. “Lord Arryn is a good match,” she said, but there was no getting around the fact that Lord Arryn was also old enough to be their father’s father. Catelyn would not want to wed him herself. “He can still give you children. It’s not all bad.”
That seemed to work better, so Catelyn continued. “You’ll have sons to carry on the Arryn name and daughters as pretty as you are.” Lysa would likely have to raise any children she had to majority herself. “You’ll be a good mother, I know it.”
Those were the words that finally stopped Lysa’s tears. “That doesn’t sound so bad,” she said timidly. “Do you really think so, Cat?”
“Yes,” Catelyn replied. “Come, dry your eyes, and I’ll help you sew your maiden’s cloak.”
---
It took most of the day. Catelyn couldn’t help Lysa with all of it, as she still had charge of the feast. A double wedding. How pleased her father must be. That made one of them.
As she went down to the kitchens to check on the last of the preparations, an unfamiliar set of footsteps drew level with her. She was too well-bred to startle obviously, and besides, there were many unfamiliar men in Riverrun these days.
“My lady,” Eddard Stark said, and at that Catelyn did jump. A little.
“My lord,” she said. “What brings you to the bowels of the keep?”
“You do.” Catelyn looked at him. His expression was still tight, severe, and above all unhappy. “What I mean, my lady, is that I wished to speak with you.”
“Of course, my lord,” she replied. “What would you like to speak to me about?”
“Would you walk with me?”
“Gladly.”
He offered her his arm, as Brandon had. “Where might we talk, my lady,” he asked, “that – that we may be observed without necessarily making our conversation public?”
So that nobody would think that they had laid together before the wedding, Catelyn surmised. That was considerate of him. “The godswood,” she said automatically. She had taken Brandon there, too, the first time they met. This felt wrong. This wasn’t the same as it was with Brandon. She shouldn’t expect it to be, and she shouldn’t try to do things the same. Probably. Maybe Lord Eddard would like the light conversation. It was hard to believe, and Catelyn didn’t feel like making any.
Somewhere out there men were dying in this rebellion, and Catelyn was worried about flowers and candles and feasts and being bedded by a man she didn’t know.
They walked there in somewhat strained silence. Catelyn wished she knew what he wanted of her. Lord Eddard’s face gave nothing away. He was clearly not at ease with her and that made her ill at ease with him in turn.
When they reached the godswood, Lord Eddard turned to her and said, simply, “I am sorry.”
“Sorry for what, my lord?” she asked.
Eddard turned away from her. “The situation,” he said. Catelyn had to strain her ears to hear him. “You were betrothed to my brother for some years. His death must have been a shock for you.”
A lump formed in Catelyn’s throat, which she quickly choked back down. It had been a shock. It was upsetting. She was speaking, however, to Brandon’s own brother. “I expect you have been suffering more than I have,” she said.
Eddard did not deny it. Neither of them could pretend that her hurt even approached his. “Still, this all must have been difficult for you,” he said. “I do not wish to cause you any more pain.”
“May I speak freely, my lord?”
“When we are alone, I would not have you speak anything but,” Eddard said.
Catelyn hesitated, then plunged ahead. “We both know why we must do this, my lord.”
“The agreement between our fathers.”
“And my father’s swords.”
“Yes.”
“My lord, I do not know if there was another lady you wanted to wed, and to be completely honest, I do not care to know. We have no choice. I swear to you I will be as good a wife to you as I know how to be. I will honour and respect you, and not expect anything from you that you cannot give. I promise you that, my lord. I promise.”
It was more audacious by far than anything she had ever said to Brandon, bolder even than asking him to spare Petyr’s life. It seemed to take Eddard aback. It was hard to spot, but his eyes widened slightly. Catelyn almost regretted her words, but no. She was done with this. She just wanted to be married. It seemed like every time she tried to have her wedding, something bad happened. This could be an end to it.
“And I will promise the same to you,” he said. “If I live to return to Winterfell with you, I will be as good a husband to you as I know how to be, though I fear I am not Brandon and never will be.”
“I do not expect you to be, my lord.” Catelyn looked at Eddard again, his plainer face, his leaner build. He was not unhandsome, really, it was just that she kept comparing him to his brother. She needed to stop. She needed to stop that right now – by tomorrow night, at the latest. “We need not be unhappy in this match.”
“Ned,” he said suddenly.
“Pardon me, my lord?”
“Most people call me Ned, my lady. You are not most people to me, but I would have you call me Ned all the same.”
“Using each other’s names seems a good first step,” Catelyn agreed. “You have permission to use mine. Ned.”
“Lady Catelyn,” he said, with a solemn nod.
It was a start, she supposed. The ridiculousness of the entire thing made her want to start laughing. This man was supposed to bed her tomorrow night and he could not even call her by name. But if there was one thing she should not do now, she knew, it was laugh. It was about all she could do to smother a nervous giggle nevertheless.
It seemed Eddard was also struck by the absurdity, since he coughed awkwardly. “Catelyn,” he corrected himself. “I – I just wanted to apologise.”
“Apologise for not being Brandon?”
“Yes,” Eddard said.
How could he keep a straight face as he said that? “It’s not something you had a choice about,” Catelyn said. “And neither do I. We must both make the best of what we have.”
He was stuck with her and she was stuck with him and if he survived this war they would both be stuck in Winterfell, a prospect that had never seemed so potentially bleak and joyless as it had until the minute she saw Lord Eddard’s solemn face. If he lived, which could not be guaranteed. It was not a statement conducive to further conversation, and there was once again silence between them.
“Do you have a heart tree?” Eddard asked her after a little while.
“Yes. Do you wish to visit it?”
“Yes.”
“I will take you there myself,” she said. “It’s not far.”
Her husband-to-be offered her his arm again, and they continued deeper into the godswood. “I hope you did not take offense at what I said,” Catelyn said, worried that she had overstepped. She did not know how to read his silence, much less his face.
Eddard didn’t so much as look at her, which did not help her understand him in the least. “I said you should speak freely,” he replied. “I do not take offense. You’ve only spoken true. I don’t have a choice, and neither do you.”
Catelyn tried to smile. “So you aren’t just trying to get rid of me now?”
“No,” he said. “I simply wish to pray. And you must be busy. I did not mean to interrupt your work.”
“I am busy,” she admitted. “But I’m glad you came to speak to me. I didn’t particularly want our first true exchange of conversation to be our wedding vows.” She risked a small jest. “I would not relish introducing myself in the bedding chamber.”
The very corner of his mouth twitched upwards. Catelyn took it for a smile.
---
The morning of her wedding began with Lysa shaking her awake. “Stop it,” she mumbled, and tried to escape her sister’s hands.
“Cat, get up, get up, I need you,” Lysa said.
I need you were words Cat had never been able to ignore, not from her sister, so she sat up. “What is it?” she said, and then she noticed Lysa’s tears.
“I can’t do it, Cat,” she said. “I just can’t.”
“Oh, Lysa,” Catelyn sighed. Now that she was awake, on the morning of her wedding no less, all she could feel herself was numb. Maybe she would be weeping too if she had not talked to Ned Stark and almost made him smile.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…”
She poured Lysa some water and made her drink it. Wine might have been better, but the risk there was that Lysa would be drunk by the time it came to say her vows. Half a goblet of strongwine right before they went to the sept, Catelyn decided, followed by a sprig of mint to sweeten her breath.
Water was definitely not enough to calm her sister. She did her best to soothe her, though, with a strange detachment.
It was really happening today. As yet there was no sign of the gods sending some new disaster to interrupt. Just a low, cloudy sky and an unusually good breakfast sent up to her and Lysa. “You’ll feel better once you eat something,” Catelyn told her sister.
The food worked where nothing else had. After some fruit and an almond cake, Lysa’s tears diminished. They did not stop entirely, though, and soon they would have to dress.
“You can do this,” Catelyn insisted. “You can. You know what to say. Come to the sept with me. We’ll practice.” There were still a few hours before they had to be ready.
It was raining slightly when she and Lysa made the walk through the godswood to the sept. As they hurried through, hair carefully covered, Catelyn saw Eddard Stark praying beneath the heart tree. Northerner, she remembered, no follower of the Seven. He must want the approval of his gods quite badly if he was out here in the rain.
Inside the sept, most everything was in readiness. The candles were here, unlit at the moment. The seats were all oriented towards the statues of the Mother and Father, where the ceremony would take place. “Here we are,” she said. “Look, nothing scary.”
Still Lysa’s tears dripped onto the stone floor.
The words of the wedding ceremony were familiar. She and Lysa had them memorized a long time ago, dreaming of this day. It had been very different in those dreams, fancying of wedding handsome, laughing young men. Brandon, in Catelyn’s case, ever since she’d met him. Not dour men who prayed to trees alone in the rain, or men old enough to be their grandfather. Catelyn was pinning all her hopes of something more, something better, on the trace of Ned Stark’s smile. She had no other choice.
After the wedding feasts were over, they were supposed be sent off from Riverrun with smiles, to be greeted at the households of their husbands with the same. Instead they would say goodbye to their new husbands almost as soon as they’d wedded them, and their father would go too. They could all die out there.
This was not how it was supposed to be. It wasn’t fair. Catelyn felt like crying herself as she recited the familiar words and prompted Lysa to say them too. “There, see,” she finished. “You can do this.”
To her relief, Lysa nodded.
“Come on,” Catelyn said. “Let’s get dressed.”
Their wedding dresses were both blue. Lysa dried her tears and, with a little bit of powder, it was near impossible to tell that she’d been weeping for hours. If the stitching on Lysa’s maiden’s cloak was a bit rushed, nobody would be examining it that closely either.
Their father met them at the sept door with a smile. Catelyn had hardly seen him these past two days. He looked tired, and Catelyn was struck by how his hair was starting to show streaks of grey. “Catelyn, Lysa,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, father,” they chorused.
“You both look beautiful,” he said. “Lord Stark and Lord Arryn will no doubt be impressed.”
“Thank you, father,” they said.
He reached out his hands, one for Catelyn, one for Lysa. “My girls,” he said. “I hope you will be happy in your marriages. I know neither man would have been your first choice of husband, but they are both good men, and they will treat you well. I love you both very much, and I could not give you to anyone less.”
Lord Hoster escorted Catelyn into the sept first. The candles were all alight now. They needed them – though the rain had stopped, the cloud had not lifted, and the early spring afternoon was as dark as evening. Her wedding guests were an assortment of grim-faced men readier for a battle than a wedding feast, with hardly a lady to be seen amongst them. The lords bannermen of Riverlands, North and Vale knew what was being achieved here for their cause.
Eddard Stark was waiting for her by the statue of the Father, a particularly serious expression on his face. If Catelyn knew him better, she might find it a very appealing expression. Instead she just wondered if this might in time be a fond memory, and reassured herself that at least her husband did not undertake this lightly.
Jon Arryn, she saw, gave Eddard a reassuring smile. How it affected its intended target, she didn’t know, but she at least felt better for knowing that she was not the only one of them who was nervous about this.
When her father brought Lysa to the statue of the Mother next to her, looking for all the world as if she were utterly delighted to wed Jon Arryn, the ceremony began.
Ned Stark was not comfortable with it all, she could tell. She thought it was the sept that he didn’t like. When called to kneel, he simply bowed his head. The septon looked askance at him for it. But he went through the motions with no more love for her than she had for him.
He was gentle, rather awkward in fact, when he removed her maiden’s cloak and replaced it with one bearing the Stark direwolf. He even fumbled slightly with the clasp. It almost fell off, and she had to fix it herself lest it did. A bad omen, all agreed.
Their hands brushed as she did so. There was no spark, no special warmth, nothing like she had felt with Brandon. There was no joy in this occasion, not for either of them.
At last she had to speak her vows. Now that the moment came her mouth was rather dry. “With this kiss I pledge my love,” she said, “and take you for my lord and husband.”
Eddard replied, “With this kiss I pledge my love, and take you for my lady and wife.”
They both knew the truth of this. With this kiss we do our duty. It was a perfunctory sort of affair and lasted no more than a second or two. His short beard scratched at Catelyn’s mouth.
With that, it was done. She was Catelyn Stark now.
There was still the bedding, and what would happen after the bedding, when she and Eddard were alone as man and wife for the first time.
She only knew a little about private relations between men and women. There was what her septa had taught her, which was not much, and there was what she had overheard over the years that she hadn’t supposed to. At the least, she knew what went where and how it was supposed to make her feel.
Some of the things she had overheard, she did not feel she would be brave enough to try and could not imagine being enjoyable.
Lost in her own thoughts, she scarcely heard Lysa say her own vows. The sound of applause brought her back to herself, and she remembered to stay on Eddard’s arm rather than seeking her father’s.
She also had to remember to smile. She had to, even if her new husband didn’t seem inclined to do any such thing. Next to them, Lysa and Jon Arryn were managing perfectly well.
Manage perfectly well. What else could a good wife do?
---
She enjoyed the feast. All those grim battle-ready men seemed relieved now and the atmosphere was merry. For the moment.
Better still, she was lucky enough to be seated next to her father. Her husband was at her other side, but as she had discovered the day before, he was not much of a conversationalist. Poor Lysa was unlucky again. Smiling at Jon Arryn was a different matter to conversing with him.
“What happens next?” she whispered to her father, once Eddard had been dragged into a conversation with a Lord Ryswell.
“Do you mean next as in this evening, or next as in next morning?”
“Next morning,” Catelyn said. “And after. I know you must all go to war soon.”
The question made her father sigh. “We will be gone in ten days, two weeks perhaps. It’s far too dangerous for you to travel to Winterfell now, or Lysa to the Eyrie. You will both stay here at Riverrun for the time being.”
“Have you told Edmure?”
“He knows some already. I’ll tell him the rest tomorrow. You know, Cat, that even though you are Lady Stark now, the people of Riverrun will rely on you in my absence.”
That was another weight on her mind. As if she didn’t have enough.
At last the music slowed and Catelyn knew it was nearly time. “Are you ready, my lady?” Eddard asked her.
Catelyn nodded, trying not to let her apprehension show. Last time there had been a wedding in Riverrun, her father had deemed her old enough to participate in the bedding. She had not dared to do anything but take a few items of clothing as they were passed to her by ladies far more bold. From her place at the table, forbidden from taking part, Lysa had shouted a jest about the man’s parts and her face had gone as red as her hair. Petyr had probably encouraged her.
Now it was her turn.
“I am ready, my lord,” she said.
“As am I,” he replied. “You need not worry.”
Too late, my lord. The chant for them to be stripped had already gone up. Hands seized her arm and tugged her insistently from her seat. The men were careful not to hurt her. But there were hands all over her, and her clothes were tearing. She could feel cool air where before there had been heavy cloth.
A young man made a comment about her teats and turned as red as Lysa had when she had made her own joke. Catelyn could feel herself colouring too. Naked. Naked in front of this many men.
Then she was picked up and carried upstairs. Somewhere nearby Eddard Stark was being stripped and carried himself, and back in the main hall it was likely that Lysa and her husband were undergoing the same treatment. Catelyn’s thoughts jolted around with every step the cheering men carrying her took to Eddard Stark’s rooms. Not her own familiar chambers. Eddard Stark’s, or at least the chambers she herself had said should be his while he stayed at Riverrun.
Another cheer went up when she was placed on the bed. The mattress sagged as Eddard Stark was bundled in next to her. “Wedded and bedded!” everyone cried, and started to troop out.
The door closed with a slam and left Catelyn alone and naked with her husband. On her back, even.
Oddly, though, she could feel the colour going out of her face. She was still nervous. But she could breathe again, and the hands were off her, and nobody was shouting rude jokes.
The idea of Eddard Stark making any sort of jest was quite ridiculous.
“How should we proceed?” Eddard asked her.
Catelyn did not look at him. “In the normal way,” she said. It was somewhat reassuring to know that her husband was as unsure about this as she was. “This isn’t a battle and you need not plan out how to conquer me.”
“Very well.” She heard him take a deep breath, and then he climbed atop her. She could not avoid looking at him then. Not unhandsome, she thought as he began. And not unpleasant.
It was a messier affair than Catelyn had expected, or ever been told. Likewise, she had never been instructed not to accidentally knee her husband after he accidentally put too much weight on her. It had startled her.
When it was over, Eddard rolled off. That was it, Catelyn supposed. They lay side by side for a while, not touching. Catelyn wondered whether her husband didn’t know what to say, or whether he felt nothing needed to be said.
“If we are fortunate, a son will come from this,” she said at last.
“Yes, my lady,” he replied. “If we are fortunate.”
“Catelyn,” she reminded him, but he made no reply. She turned to look at him to find he was asleep.
---
There was more applause and a few more randy jokes when she and Eddard went to the hall to break their fasts. Catelyn did not blush. She was a woman wed now. She ought not blush.
“I fear I must leave you to your own devices today, my lady,” Eddard said as they ate. “There is work I must attend to in the camps."
“As long as you are not fleeing in terror from me, I can manage quite well enough on my own,” Catelyn replied.
The corner of his mouth twitched upwards again. “I will return by the evening meal.” And to their bed. Lying with Eddard Stark hadn’t been so very bad. Even if it had, it still must be done. She must give her lord husband an heir.
When he had gone, Catelyn went to the sept. Praying to the Mother that her husband’s seed might quicken in her womb was very different now that she actually had a husband who had spent his seed in her. It was not some far-off, one-day prayer. It might happen and happen soon.
I am not sure I want a child just now, she thought guiltily. She dare not say it aloud, it was such a selfish thought.
She wanted to do her duty. That meant a son. She definitely wanted children, for herself and not for her duty. But this was a time of war. She did not want to bear her husband a babe only for Eddard to die in battle and leave her to take their child north. That would be so very lonely. It did not bear thinking about, what it would be like in Winterfell with a son but no husband, a southron woman who had known the late lord not even a turn of the moon and yet bore responsibility for raising the young Lord Stark.
Worse still was what might happen if they lost this war.
But that was just her imagination running away with her. Here and now, Eddard was alive, and the war neither lost nor won.
“A son,” she said aloud to the Mother. “A healthy, strong son.” She did want that. “I want to learn to love my husband,” she went on. “I do not expect it to happen all at once, or for anything like I felt for Brandon.”
It was not the first time she had asked the gods to help her love a man. Truth be told, she did not want to come to love him so quickly, not when she might lose him in any battle.
“If not love, help me then to think kindly of him, and to respect and honour him, and to be able to do what he asks of me. Help me to be a good mother to his children.”
It was such a dangerous thing to ask that she went to the Warrior straight after the Mother. She needed to pray for her father’s wellbeing too in any case. “I know Eddard does not follow you,” she told the icon. “But I am a faithful daughter and I know I can be a faithful wife, and I have lost one betrothed to violence already. Please keep my husband safe.”
She lit her candles and hoped.
Catelyn then went to find Lysa, concerned about her sister. She had looked well during the wedding itself, and the feast, but she could not forget how Lysa had wept before. And she had lost sight of her sister during the bedding ceremony.
Lysa was not in the godswood, nor in the kitchens, nor doing any lessons (she too was a woman wed, after all, and the time for lessons with septa was past). Instead, Catelyn found her sister in their old rooms.
“I’d rather sleep here,” Lysa said. “I like these rooms better.”
“When they all leave you can come back for a while,” Catelyn told her. “I doubt anyone will care what room you sleep in then.”
“How long will that be?” Lysa sighed. “And how long will they all be away?”
“Father said they didn’t want to stay here that long. He told me two weeks at most. Who knows how long it will take them to win the war?”
Probably more than a year. If they won. If they lost, they might never see their husbands again, or their father. The last Catelyn had been told, Robert Baratheon was still fighting his way north, and the castle of Storm’s End still held, and the Dornishmen were still dragging their feet, and the Lannisters were still keeping out of matters.
Still, still, still, still. Everything had been stuck in place. Catelyn and Lysa’s weddings might have changed that. That was why they had to marry. That and no other reason.
Eddard didn’t love her. She didn’t love Eddard. That was why she prayed to the Mother, not just the Warrior.
She could only imagine how Lysa must feel. “Are you well?” she asked, though she knew Lysa had become truly sick of the question over the past year.
“Well enough. I got a bit drunk, so it wasn’t so very bad as I thought it would be.” She lowered her voice. “Lord Arryn’s breath smells of onions.”
“Lord Stark nearly knocked the breath out of me,” Catelyn said, equally quiet. “I don’t think he’s been with many women.” If any, but she did not intend to ask him and imply any inadequacy in that arena.
They both smothered laughter, and it was a sad, quiet sort of sound in their old and empty room.
“It’s only for two weeks,” Catelyn said. “Then there will be months and months by ourselves here.”
Lysa smiled. A true smile, an expression Catelyn had not seen much of since Petyr left. “I hope I’m with child, Cat. I so want a son. Even a daughter. A little lord or lady for the Eyrie. I’d rather they took after me, but I would not be unhappy if any of them had Lord Arryn’s eyes.” She nodded decisively. “What about you?”
“I’m not sure,” Catelyn said slowly. “I hope I’m with child too,” a partial lie, “but I think I would like my sons to take after their father.” Little brown-haired boys with long faces and serious grey eyes. “Though I think I would like at least one babe who looks more like me.”
“Oh, Cat. Just thinking about it -!”
And she was so happy, happier than Catelyn had seen her for so long, that Catelyn could not bear to remind her sister that things often did not work out so well.
---
Catelyn woke early the day the armies were to depart from Riverrun. After two weeks she was rather more used to sleeping beside a man. Or this man, in any case. After he bedded her, Eddard left her to sleep on her own half of the bed.
The sun was not even up yet. Catelyn lit a candle, put on a robe, and sat down to brush her hair. She wanted to look nice as she said her farewells.
It was not long until she heard Eddard stirring behind her. Unusually, he did not rise straight away. She had quickly learned that he was not one to lie abed. “Did you need something, Ned?” Catelyn asked, turning to him. It was difficult calling him simply Ned when they were alone, but he had asked.
He looked well enough. He was looking straight at her, in fact. “Nothing, my lady,” he said. She had still not persuaded him to call her simply Catelyn. She hoped she could, but it might have to wait until they were living together in Winterfell. “I was just thinking that your hair is very beautiful.”
Catelyn stopped brushing mid-stroke. It was the first compliment he’d paid her, the first indication she’d had that he might desire her for herself. “Thank you, my lord,” she said, stunned.
That was apparently all he had to say. He got up and went about his business, and Catelyn returned to hers.
It seemed no time at all until she was walking to the gates of Riverrun, braid carefully styled over her shoulder, Edmure at her side. Edmure was also dressed up, and for once looked very serious. Father had appointed a castellan, since he could leave neither Lady Stark nor Edmure to rule his keep.
Father was already prepared to depart, looking very grand in his armour, atop his best palfrey. He had his banners flying high. “Cat,” he said warmly, when she approached him. “I’d leave you in charge here in a heartbeat if I could. Don’t let your brother get into too much trouble, my girl.”
“I won’t, Father,” she said. “Please be careful.”
“I’ll be as careful as I can,” he said. “Wait for me, little Cat, I’ll be back as always.”
She passed Lysa and Lord Arryn on her way to find Eddard. Their farewells were short and formal, she noticed. Once again she felt a stab of pity for her sister. Perhaps the next few months apart from her husband would do her good. Give her time to grow up more.
At last she found her own husband. He made for a wintry figure in his unadorned, unenamelled plate and the white and grey of his house. “My lady,” he said when he saw her.
“My lord,” she replied. “I came to say goodbye. For the time being. I wish you good fortune and safety.”
He accepted her wishes with a grave nod.
“I will write if there is any news,” Catelyn continued. If she was with child.
“Thank you,” he said. “I would like you to stay safe as well. I hope to return to you soon, my lady.”
I hope. No I promise. This is not a time for promises.
He mounted up then and rode away without a backwards glance. Not that Catelyn had expected him to look back.
She dared not make herself love him like she had made herself love Brandon when she was still a little girl. She might never see him again. But she’d do her best to learn to love him properly, when he returned.
Catelyn went back inside. I’ll make the best of it, she thought. What more could a good wife do?