The Young Wolf Kneels

by AsNightFalls

Summary:

Robb Stark loses his war and bends the knee to Tywin Lannister, who takes him prisoner instead of killing him. In the blink of an eye, he goes from someone to no one. Haunted by his mistakes and living in Tywin's ironhanded custody, Robb is forced to adjust to his new reality as a king without a crown, a lord without a castle, a squire to his enemy, and a son with only memories left of the father he lost.

A Robb-Stark-Lives alternate history with a lot of angst, a little humor, and the slow journey of two adversaries trying to figure each other out.

Notes:

Alternate history using a mix of details from A Song of Ice and Fire + Game of Thrones. Talisa/Jeyne never entered the picture (also no Frey betrothal) and liberties will be taken with certain timelines, battle encounters, etc. Tags may change to accommodate future chapters.

Comments are always appreciated! If it's your first time finding the story, I'd love to hear your thoughts while you read, your favorite chapters/lines, or anything else you felt like sharing. Thanks for coming along on the journey!

Chapter 1: The North Falls

The wagon rattled over a patch of rocky earth, jostling Robb Stark against the bars of his cage. It hardly bothered him anymore. He’d been in there for nearly two weeks now, being carted along with the Lannister army as they returned south, having secured their victory against the King in the North and eager to throw their full force against Renly Baratheon now.

He hadn’t expected it to end like this. For things to spin out of control so suddenly and unpredictably. For Theon Greyjoy, a man he’d considered a brother, to betray him with such callous swiftness after he’d trusted him to negotiate an alliance with his father. The report that instead of returning to Robb with a treaty promising a fleet, he’d led an Ironborn force to capture Winterfell.

And then—then—the unthinkable raven about his little brothers, the news of their deaths carried to him on wings as black as Robb’s eyes had gone when he’d read the words. He could still hear his mother’s screams upon hearing she’d lost the only children she’d believed to be safe.

Damn it: his mother. Catelyn had been with their camp before the battle but didn’t seem to have been captured, and he wondered where she was now, alive or dead. She’d been the next to betray him in her grief, setting Jaime free and relying on nothing but Lannister goodwill (two words that in Robb’s mind never paired) to return her girls to her in trade. He’d been as furious about that as his men, but he’d still had to act when the Karstarks undermined his authority to take revenge on Jaime’s kin, two squires they’d been holding prisoner, mere boys. The blow he’d dealt to separate Lord Karstark’s head from his shoulders had just as surely severed the support of his house and his soldiers.

But even though his forces had dwindled with their departure, he’d felt the need to rush into an attack as soon as he could plan one. And yes, he’d had his reasons, the ones he had told his advisors at least. To strike before the Lannisters found out he no longer held the Kingslayer. Surprise them in another ambush to gain more captives before they realized that they held all of the leverage, while all Robb had was an empty cage (it wasn’t lost on him that he and Jaime had traded places now) and the bodies of two innocent Lannister children for whom he'd had to execute a bannerman.

His argument had made a certain sort of sense, perhaps, and Robb had proved himself enough times as a strategist and warrior that his council hadn’t contested his plans too vehemently. But it hadn’t really been about the issue of leverage at all to Robb. It had been about his own anger. There had been too much loss and treachery in his life, too quickly, and Robb hadn’t wanted to do anything except feel the heat of battle and watch blood spray beneath his sword as he rode against the enemy with Grey Wind at his side.

But this time, the ambush had failed. Robb quickly realized it had been sloppily planned and they were outnumbered, and he should have ordered the retreat. He’d even been about to call the command to his uncle Edmure, but before the words could form in his throat, a spear had sprouted from his uncle’s chest and just like that, death had taken someone else from him. So he had fought on out of pure stubbornness and fury, believing they could beat the odds like they always had before, and his men had stayed beside him until it was too late. Robb had been knocked off his horse and continued fighting on foot until he was surrounded, at the end. Him and Grey Wind, together, like they always were.

The direwolf’s final bite had been in defense of his master. When Grey Wind had died with his teeth around a Lannister general’s throat and ten spears in his ribs, another part of Robb’s heart had died with him. He had expected to be cut down next—one wolf beside the other, his final words his loyal companion’s name—and in all honesty he now thought he would have preferred that. There was honor in dying in battle, but he doubted that would be the case in whatever end the Lannisters would dream up for him instead.

Robb hadn’t seen Lord Tywin since he’d been made to kneel to him on the battlefield, surrendering his kingship and himself so the bloodied remnants of his armies would be allowed to return north to their families alive. But even after so many days had passed, he wasn’t surprised when soldiers came to fetch him from his cage several hours after they'd made camp that afternoon, informing him that Lord Lannister had summoned him. He’d probably been deciding what to do with him—how and when to execute him, specifically—and was ready to share the news with his prisoner.

They didn’t need to put him in shackles, since he’d been wearing them for weeks already. A bucket of water over his head was the Lannister soldiers’ version of “making him presentable” for their lord, but Robb wiped his face as best he could and didn’t complain; it felt good to be a little cleaner, if also wetter and colder.

Even though he walked with them willingly as they escorted him to Tywin’s command tent, they managed to find their own reasons to roughly yank or shove him along, and Robb resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was just the kind of pettiness he expected from Lannister men. They already took every possible opportunity to taunt him in the cage. Howling at him like a wolf was their favorite move, and he had to be careful not to show how much it hurt, because it made him think of Grey Wind every time.

Upon actually reaching the tent, though, his escorts transformed into the picture of decorum, standing up straight and showing Robb inside with relative courtesy. His eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight outside to the tent’s dim interior, the thick smoke of burning incense hanging in the air, masking the smell of travel: leather and dust and sweat. Tywin Lannister was standing by his strategy table, where Robb assumed he spent a lot of his time during wars, since he’d never actually seen him on the field. With the exception of this last time, of course, once the battle had been over.

Once they’d brought him close enough, one of the guards pressed down on his shoulder like he was making to shove him to his knees, but Tywin held up a hand. “You may leave,” he told them. They nodded crisply, without second-guessing the order, and stepped outside, leaving them alone.

Once they did, his attention turned to Robb. “So. The young wolf, in the fur and flesh again. Gracious of you to join me.”

Robb was not interested in preamble. “Are you going to kill me?” His shoulders were squared, chin up, and he was certain he did not look afraid, because he was not afraid. Not of Lord Tywin, and not to die.

“Perhaps,” Tywin answered, but it was quiet for a long time then as his calculating green eyes studied the young Stark man. “Though it seems a waste.”

“Then what, Lannister?” Robb snapped. “Why am I here?”

“You will address me as ‘my lord’ or some variant thereof, or not at all, boy.”

“Don’t call me ‘boy’ and I’ll consider it,” he shot back. He’d been a man two years now, had in fact spent his eighteenth name-day in the cage a week ago, and the northmen he led had stopped calling him that when they’d crowned him their king.

Tywin backhanded him across the face, hard enough to snap his head to the side. “That isn’t how this is going to work. I’ll address you however I’d like. Do not misunderstand your situation.”

When Robb swiveled it back, he could feel blood trickling from his lip. He lifted his manacled hands to wipe it away with a sleeve.

“To answer your question, I did have a somewhat entertaining thought as an alternative to your death,” Tywin continued. “I’m in need of a new squire. Someone to clean up after my horse and polish my boots. It’s only an idea, mind you, but I’d rather like seeing it done by the young king of the North.”

Robb’s eyes narrowed. “Polished in spit, my lord? I could manage that.”

Tywin absently ran the fingers of his one hand over the back of the other, like he was considering striking him again. “Didn’t your father teach you to respect your betters?”

“He did,” Robb confirmed, and although he didn’t expound further, his meaning was clear.

“Tell me, boy,” Tywin said after a moment, staring at him coldly. “Did the honorable Ned Stark beat his children?”

Hearing his dead father’s name come out of the Lannister lord’s mouth made Robb’s fists tighten. But one of the lessons Eddard had tried to drive home to him was to react to difficult situations with measured thought, not impulsive anger, and Robb would not dishonor his name by letting it be the reason he lost his temper. “Not very often, my lord,” he answered.

“So he did,” Tywin mused. “I’m not certain whether that surprises me or not.”

“Did you beat yours?” Robb asked with a touch of insolence.

Tywin ignored it. “I believe it will surprise you that the late Lord Stark and I have the answer in common. Perhaps for differing reasons. I’ve been accused of being many things, but a present father was never one of them.”

Like a good soldier, Robb aimed for the chink in the armor. “You have regrets, Lord Tywin?”

Either the armor held or that spot had been stabbed enough to scar several layers over already. “Regrets that all two-and-a-half of my children are pompous, useless little shits? It’s certainly far from ideal. Did your father use a strap, or was he gentler?”

It felt like Tywin was mocking him, stirring up grief and rage and hate all together in his chest, but Robb tamped them down. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Only wondering how much of the experience will be new to you.” The older man was unbuckling the sturdy belt that cinched his tunic.

Ned had, in fact, used a strap to correct more serious disobedience once his boys were older, but Robb didn’t predict that the experience would be the same at all. At Winterfell, discipline could be painful, but it was traditionally mixed with a deep respect and care, an honest conversation, a focus on the lesson being imparted. Things that Robb assumed would be unfathomable to a Lannister mind. “You mean to humble me, I take it.”

“A proper beating is the best remedy I know for a disrespectful whelp who needs to learn his place,” Tywin answered, wrapping the buckled end around his hand. “And if I do grant you the honor of squiring me, you may consider this the first of many. I learn from my own mistakes and make sure my squires are trained better than my children.”

Before Robb could respond, he found himself grasped by the collar, turned around, and shoved unceremoniously over Tywin’s war table. He landed among the maps and figurines that must have at one point represented Robb’s armies, and now depicted someone else’s, since Robb didn’t have armies anymore.

“We’ll start with an easy trick,” Lannister said, releasing him. “Stay.”

“Already know that one,” Robb bit out, adjusting his forearms on the table. He didn’t have to be told that there were many worse things Tywin could do to him if he resisted. This could only humiliate him if he let it.

“We’ll see,” was his captor’s response.

The belt whipped hard against the seat of his trousers, which were still damp from his impromptu bath outside and barely felt protective. It stung fiercely, and so did the next lash a second later, but he absorbed each blow with practiced neutrality. He was Robb Stark: raised to be a lord, chosen to be a king. He had walked in here prepared for a death sentence. A thrashing of all things wasn’t going to break him.

It was just going to fucking hurt, that was all. Each harsh stroke felt like it burned right through the fabric to redden and welt the skin beneath. His backside throbbed as the stripes began to overlap one another, and he wondered with grim amusement if Tywin had wished he could do this after all the battles where Robb had metaphorically thrashed him on the field. He had the good sense not to ask the question aloud, because he was pretty sure Tywin could hit harder if he wanted to. And he was hitting hard enough as it was.

Pain wasn’t always such a bad thing, though; Robb had decided that a long time ago. While he didn’t welcome it, he also didn’t fear it as many men did and had handled it stoically since he was a young boy. He’d often thought there was a certain clarity to be found in pain: it sharply forced you to reflect on whatever events had led to the situation you were in and motivated you to find a better way next time.

Although there weren’t always next times, he told himself bitterly. Bran and Rickon wouldn’t have any next times. Sometimes there really was just suffering and there was nothing you could learn and nothing you could do but accept it.

As the belt continued to fall, with every new bite of leather adding more heat to the fire, Robb closed his eyes and swam into the pain. This is for sending Theon to the Iron Islands, he thought. For leaving the North undefended. For letting your brothers die. And for letting their deaths cost you the war because all you wanted was blood and you didn’t care how you got it. For rushing into battle and letting good men lose their lives for your grief.

His hold over himself was growing so tenuous. The belt snapped hard across his thighs, and Robb jerked forward at the fresh sting. Noting his reaction, Tywin did it again, and Robb cried out before he could stop himself.

“Ah,” Tywin said, and the blows ceased. “So the pup does bark.”

Even though it had apparently brought the whipping to an end, Robb immediately regretted showing weakness, no matter how slightly.

“Get up,” Tywin commanded.

When Robb faced him, he held his chin just as high as before.

“Not badly taken for a boy who was not beaten often,” Tywin said, and the compliment made Robb’s insides clench in anger more than an insult would have. “At your age, I’m certain Jaime would have been wailing to wake the dead halfway through. And now, with twice your years, he might not even make it halfway.”

“Perhaps that’s the difference between a king and a coward who stabs kings in the back,” Robb spat.

The Lannister lord smiled slightly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Still fancy yourself a king, do you?”

“Beat me again if you’d like,” Robb said indifferently. “I won’t reward you by uttering another sound.”

Tywin’s eyes did change a little then, but Robb couldn’t quite tell what was behind them. He lifted the belt, and Robb expected to be struck and didn’t flinch, but Lord Lannister was only moving to put it back on. “I believe you,” he told Eddard Stark’s son. “And I will not test you on that claim today.”

“You should kill me,” Robb told him, and he knew Tywin heard the threat veiled in his words: if you don’t, I’ll make you regret it.

“I believe that is the truth as well,” Tywin said. “But letting you live is my mistake to make if I choose. I do not intend to heed your counsel on the matter.”

“You aren’t worried?” Robb couldn’t help but ask. “Having an enemy so close to you, if you name me your squire?”

It hurt like cold steel, the way the Lannister lord’s eyes seemed to slice right through him. “You won’t sabotage my horse or slip poison in my water flask, young wolf. If you kill me, you will be looking me in the eyes as you do and I will have a weapon in my hand. Or do I have you wrong?”

Robb’s eyes held some daggers of their own, but he sheathed them with a blink and lifted his head proudly. “You have it right. I’m no Lannister.”

Tywin made a derisive sound. “Honorable men are the easiest to predict. So yes, you will squire me, and no, I am not worried.” He saw the resentful look Robb shot him, and added, “You’re free to change your mind on that answer at any time, of course. If it’s a Stark who slays me with dishonor, I may just die with a smile on my lips at the irony.”

He called for his guards and instructed them to “put the dog back in his cage,” and Robb didn’t resist as they took him.

Robb’s father was dead. His brothers were dead, and his uncle, and his wolf. Thousands of his men were dead, and the northern rebellion had bled to its end on the ground along with them.

But Robb Stark was going to live.

Chapter 2: Night Running

Summary:

TW for brief concerns about SA (does not & will not actually occur)

The next day, Robb began planning his escape. It was like he’d been in a fog before, like he had given up and been living in some liminal place between life and death since his capture. Something about the meeting with Tywin had snapped him out of that: he had gone to sleep clear-headed and woken up determined.

He knew that he’d really only have one attempt. The guards were already watching him like hawks, and if he showed his hand too early, they would never give him a second chance. His cage was open to the elements and stayed perpetually damp and cold, so Robb knew exactly what tactic he was going to try. But it was an old trick, so he had to be smart about it and bide his time.

A couple mornings later, when the guards looked in on him before breaking camp, he was already starting his performance. He was breathing shallowly, his lips cracked open, and he kept his eyes closed most of the day, as though the light was too much for him to bear. He let out a cough from time to time, exaggerated just enough to catch their attention and earn him a “Shut the hell up, Stark,” from the ones who were easier to annoy.

Over the next few days, Robb’s act escalated. Every movement, every breath, became an opportunity to sell his sickness. He started coughing harder, irritating his throat enough that he eventually managed to produce a dry rattle and behaving like it took a little more energy out of him each time.

The food that was brought to him—usually stale bread and a bowl of thin, watery stew—went largely untouched. It was difficult, because he was hungry, but he couldn’t afford to eat too much. His body needed to appear weak, debilitated, as though his illness was progressing with alarming speed. He forced himself to take small sips of water, but most of it he let drip from his lips, as if he could no longer hold it down. The hunger also made him pale and clammy, which helped with the ruse.

Every time a guard tried to address him, Robb would groan softly, turning his face away as if he were too exhausted to speak. He kept his eyes half-closed, his breath shallow, his hands shaking just enough to suggest fever.

At the end of the third day, he decided it was time to advance the plan. It was a cold, grey, rainy night, so he was already wet and shivering, and knew the way to make himself appear more ill: eyes unfocused, lips trembling, fingers pressed to his temples as if he were trying to hold his head together. He sank so far into the role of the helpless, fevered captive that he almost had himself convinced he was truly sick. When his two guards—one young, one older—looked in through the bars that night, he rolled onto his side in the fetal position, clutching weakly at his stomach in agony.

“What’s wrong with him?” the older one muttered, eyeing Robb warily. “Looks like he’s near death.”

Robb managed to summon enough strength to open his eyes halfway. His gaze was unfocused, the look of someone far too exhausted to care for his own fate. Then he started coughing, and when the fit was over he let out a small, strangled gasp for air. He pressed his manacled hands to his chest, pretending to choke, as if his disease was finally getting the better of him.

With a panicked look on his face, the younger guard ran.

He returned a few minutes later with a grizzled man in tow, a physician from the looks of him. The man looked at Robb with the practiced eyes of someone who had seen thousands of sick men—he would not be easily fooled.

The doctor approached the cage to make a better visual examination. Robb’s heart pounded and he barely had to fake his breathing: shallow and quick, like he was at death’s door. He hoped he looked as wet and pale and pathetic as he felt.

The physician turned back to the guards with a grunt. “How long has this been going on? Only tonight?”

“He’s been shivering and coughing for days,” the young guard admitted. “I just…”

“Wanted to watch him suffer? You idiot. I should have been notified immediately. You two will have to help me get him to the medical tent so I can assess and treat him properly.”

The young guard nodded, though uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “But...if he’s sick, we—”

“Do as you’re told, or I’ll take the matter to Tywin myself,” the physician snapped, and his tone made the guard flinch. It was clear he feared the idea of their incompetence being reported to their lord.

It was enough.

Robb’s mind raced as the guards fumbled with the lock and swung open the iron door. He could almost taste his freedom, but he had to be careful. They had to believe he was too ill to resist. They entered the cage and pulled him up. Feigning weakness, Robb swayed on his feet. His legs truly were stiff from hours of confinement, and his head swam with the imagined dizziness of his “fever.” He collapsed, and the guards caught him, ducking their shoulders beneath his arms to support his weight.

Freezing rain lashed down on them as they dragged him through the dark, quiet camp. The physician followed close behind, muttering about infection and fever and “no wonder, kenneling him out there in the weather,” as if Robb were little more than a sick dog.

“Stay there,” he commanded the guards when they reached the tent. It was situated on the outskirts of the camp, which served Robb’s purposes quite well. “I’ll fetch a stretcher for him and have my assistants set up a quarantine tent. If he is contagious, I don’t want to bring him inside with my other patients.”

As he disappeared inside, the guards shifted uncomfortably at the mention of contagion. Robb manufactured a deep, hacking cough, and felt their grips loosen as they leaned away.

The opportunity was small but precious. Robb didn’t waste it.

He sprang into motion, throwing his weight into the younger soldier’s chest, sending him stumbling backward. In the same instant, Robb yanked the sword from the guard’s belt, and with a violent twist, he slashed the blade across the older one’s arm before he could draw his own weapon.

His heart hammered in his chest as he bolted through the rain toward the shadows of the forest, his feet pounding across the wet, uneven ground. One slip would end him. He heard shouts behind him, the clang of armor and weapons, but he didn’t look back. His escape was a fragile thing, built on desperation and a moment of opportunity. The soldiers would recover quickly.

The woods were a thick maze of trees and underbrush, but Robb threw himself through it with reckless abandon, trusting his instincts. The howling wind worked to his favor, muffling the noise he was creating as he ran deeper into the darkness. His breath came in ragged gasps, the cold air burning his throat, but he forced himself to keep going. He was built for this weather in a way southern soldiers weren’t. The cold was his ally. His only ally, right now.

 

He had covered miles by the time he finally stopped, with the rain slowing to a drizzle and the clouds peeling back enough to reveal the moon beginning its journey down the other side of the sky. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but he was exhausted and hungry and a good deal of his weakness hadn’t truly been feigned. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, scanning the forest. There hadn’t been any sights or sounds of his pursuers for hours. That didn’t make Robb feel any more comfortable, but he knew he had to rest a little and try to gather his strength.

He knelt to drink from one of the narrow streams that slithered through the dense tangle of the woods, the water glimmering black in the moonlight and tasting refreshingly cold, then crawled into a thicket that would at least hide him from any searchers who made it this far. They wouldn’t just give up, he knew that, but it was a large forest and they’d have a lot of ground to cover.

Robb slept fitfully and woke with the first light of dawn. He spent a few moments listening to his surroundings as he adjusted to consciousness, then emerged from the thicket and set out again, moving slowly and cautiously this time, his mind buzzing as he crept through the forest. It was such a silent place. Trees towered overhead, anchored by thick ropes of gnarled roots adorned in dark green moss and pale mushrooms. It might have been beautiful if it weren’t so unsettling: Robb would have felt better to hear one bird sing or see one squirrel dart between the branches. But the woods were deep here, and as far as he could tell, he was the only thing moving in them right now.

Despite his initial success, Robb knew he couldn’t outrun Tywin forever. His thoughts were already turning toward the next phase—how to regroup, how to rally his bannermen, how to—

No. He had more immediate problems. How to free himself from his chains—how to fill his stomach before he passed out from hunger—how to find his way out of the forest and perhaps to a sympathetic door—

Snap.

A twig broke underfoot. And it hadn’t been Robb’s foot. It was small, but the sound echoed through the stillness of the forest, sharp and clear. Robb’s heart jumped into his throat, his hand tightening around the hilt of his stolen sword.

He wasn’t as alone as he’d thought.

Turning quickly, he peered into the trees. It was still early, and the sun had only just begun to paint the sky in hues of pink and orange, barely visible past the thick canopy of leaves. For a moment, all he heard was the sound of his own breathing.

Then, from the shadows, a figure emerged—a tall, broad-shouldered man with a longbow slung across his back. A tracker, perhaps, or a scout.

Wearing the sigil of a lion on his breast.

Robb had hoped that the rains would have made him harder to track, but perhaps they had ended too soon, leaving traces of his footprints in the mud, ferns trampled in a particular way. Leading this man—and likely others—right to him.

“Where do you think you're going, Stark?” the soldier asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“North,” Robb answered, bringing his sword to bear. “But I seem to have lost my way.”

The tracker lifted his fingers and whistled loudly.

Robb lunged. But his legs felt stiff and wooden and it wasn’t with his usual grace. The man easily sidestepped him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. Spinning on his backfoot, Robb slashed at him again, with the same result. Before he could pivot for a third strike, the soldier’s hand shot out, grabbing him by the wrist with a strength Robb didn’t anticipate from a tracker. His grip was like iron, bending his hand backward with a brutal force.

Robb’s pulse quickened. He twisted, pulling against the man’s grasp, but it was no use. The soldier’s other hand snaked around his throat, forcing him to the ground. The sword was wrenched from his hand with a swift motion. Robb struggled, his breath coming in sharp gasps, but the soldier’s knee pressed into his chest, pinning him down.

“I expected more from you.” The soldier’s voice was cold with amusement. “Come on, king in the North. Transform into a wolf like the stories and give me a fight, won’t you?”

“Didn’t take a man of your age for a believer in children’s tales,” Robb panted. Now he could hear the faint sound of boots pounding earth in the distance, branches snapping as more Lannister men pushed through the brush. He shouldn’t have stopped to rest. Should have kept going until he couldn’t anymore. Last night he had thought he was at that point already, but in retrospect he decided that he could have kept going if he’d really tried.

The tracker yanked Robb to his feet with relative ease. “You’re lucky. Lord Tywin said you’re not to be harmed. Then again, you probably aren’t lucky, because he’ll want to deal with you himself.”

Robb’s mind raced. Escape was still possible, but only if he could somehow break free of this soldier’s grip and outrun the rest of the Lannister forces. The soldier was bigger than him, and stronger, at least in his current state. But Robb had the advantage of rage and desperation. He could do this. He had to. If he got into the right position, he could use the chain linking his shackles as a weapon.

Just as he gathered his energy and prepared to make his move, the tracker’s companions emerged from the trees, surrounding him in a half-circle. A dozen soldiers, at least.

There was nothing he could do. They had him.

For a brief, bitter moment, Robb felt a surge of helplessness, and his captor grinned at the look in his eyes. His short taste of freedom had come to an end.

And now, there was only the long walk back to captivity.

 

Robb was marched along in the company of the Lannister soldiers, their voices low and purposeful as they navigated the dense forest. His legs were sore from running for miles after he’d barely even walked in weeks, and the exhaustion was beginning to wear at him. The fever he had feigned had been replaced with a genuine, throbbing ache in his head, and his body longed for more rest, though he knew he wouldn’t get it yet. Robb’s pride was the only thing that kept him upright, but even that felt brittle now. The weight of another fresh failure pressed down on him like a stone lodged in his chest.

When they crossed the edge of the woods, Robb could see the outline of the Lannister camp in the distance. Plumes of smoke rose from its fires and the large tents were lit up by the brightness of midmorning sun. The banners of the lion snapped in the breeze.

Instead of being taken back to his cage, he was paraded through camp directly to the command tent, where the door flap was pulled aside and Robb was shoved inside, accompanied by two of the soldiers. The tracker who had originally caught him must not have cared about taking the credit, because he had already disappeared.

Tywin was sitting at his table this time, scratching a missive with the quill in his hand. At the commotion, he looked up calmly. His pale eyes flickered over the captive with his usual detachment, not even doing Robb’s dignity the courtesy of looking surprised that they had caught him. He set the quill down and rested his palms flat on the table’s surface, his posture ramrod straight.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Robb stood there with the grips of his escorts digging into his shoulders, his chest tight.

“You were foolish to think you could escape, boy.” Tywin’s eyes never left him as he spoke, his voice quiet, but carrying the unmistakable authority of a man who knew he was in control. “Foolish even to try when you don’t know the land. That forest is vast and uninhabited. Were the terms I offered you so unfair that you’d rather starve or freeze out there, just to say you died free?”

“Your terms were fair, my lord,” Robb managed, his mouth dry. He was trying so hard to not be afraid, but he knew all about Lannister ruthlessness and didn’t know what Tywin would do with an escaped prisoner. The uncertainty was the worst part.

“Or did you think you could continue this war? That your people would be following us and rise up to save their beloved northern king?” Tywin scoffed at the idea. “I’ve had men following them. They’ve already crawled home without you, Stark. They’ve accepted their fates. It’s time you do the same.”

Tywin probably didn’t want him as a squire anymore, knowing he’d just run when he had the chance. “You will kill me after all, then?”

There was a moment of quiet. “Leave us,” Tywin told the guards. “I would have a word with the young wolf alone.”

They left, but it seemed like Tywin hadn’t yet chosen the word he wanted to have, because he didn’t speak right away. Instead, he stood and began pacing, the way he moved looking every bit like the sigil of his house.

Then he stopped and looked at Robb sharply. “You act like you’re hoping for a death sentence. Do you want to die?”

“Does it surprise you?” Robb asked. “That I didn’t fall over myself with gratitude at the chance to serve my enemy?”

“It surprises me that you would rather let the Stark name and legacy die out than exercise a little humility and see where it takes you,” Lannister answered bluntly.

That was like a punch in the gut. Robb didn’t know why he hadn’t thought about it before. He was the last Stark heir. His father and brothers were gone. One uncle was dead and the other wore black. Jon was a Snow. His sisters would take the names of whomever they wed. It was only him.

“Regardless,” Lord Tywin continued, “even if you would prefer to die, I already told you I’m not taking your advice, and I meant it.”

“Yes, my lord,” Robb said, staring at the ground, unsure whether or not to be glad that Tywin still intended to keep his head on his shoulders.

“You could at least have accepted it with dignity instead of running, and spared yourself another humiliation,” Tywin continued, the faintest trace of disappointment in his voice. “But then, you are young, and too proud for your own good.”

“I had to try,” was all Robb could think to say.

“Perhaps you did,” Tywin said. He stepped closer and grasped him by the scruff of the neck like a troublesome puppy, pressing him down until Robb was face-to-face with the smooth wood of his table again. “The Stark name, but the Tully stubbornness, I suppose. You favor your mother as well.”

Lannister’s boots kicked his feet apart. There was some rustling behind him before his pants and smallclothes were ripped down, and Robb felt a moment of panic, suddenly very vulnerable and very aware that there were more ways than one to humiliate an enemy in this position. “Don’t…”

When he didn’t finish his sentence, the grip on his nape tightened. “Don’t what?”

Without answering, Robb closed his eyes, his mind racing. He wouldn’t put it past a Lannister to use deviant tactics to make sure he knew how powerless he was. And Tywin didn’t seem like a man who would be dissuaded by begging. If he wasn’t misreading the intent, he would have to use whatever strength he had left to fight.

The hand moved up to grasp his hair, pulling his head back, exposing his neck. “Don’t what, boy?”

“D…dishonor me,” Robb gasped.

“I hope you’re not insinuating that I’m a man with a penchant for buggery,” Lord Tywin said grimly. “I do not deal in such perversions.”

Relief flooded through Robb, despite his predicament and the anger in the lord’s tone. “Forgive me, my lord.”

His hair was roughly released as Tywin pushed his head back toward the table in disgust. “Forgiveness isn’t one of my habits either.”

The bite of Tywin’s strap against Robb’s bare skin quickly clarified why he’d been disrobed. Would this be all, then? He’d known he’d be punished harshly for his attempt to escape, but he’d actually expected something more brutal, or at least more public. For them to break his legs in order to eliminate running as a possibility for some time, perhaps. Or use the incident as an excuse to chop off a hand and mail it north as a warning to whatever remained of Robb’s forces. Not to simply be bent over Tywin’s table again and corrected like a boy.

His gratitude kept him in place through the most severe thrashing he’d ever received. The lord’s mercy obviously only extended so far, and he swung the leather with a force that left Robb’s arse raw by the end and his legs welted down to the knees. There would be bruises tomorrow, he was sure of that. Robb winced at each blow, clenching his fists and breathing hard, but didn’t vocalize a single sound, like he’d told Tywin last time that he wouldn’t. For whatever reason, his mind drifted to Grey Wind and how he had died because of Robb’s arrogance, and holding that image in his head made him almost glad for the pain.

When it was over and he was bid to stand, he rigidly replaced his trousers and turned around. Tywin didn’t appear to be angry anymore, even though it seemed to Robb like the default state of his face was a permanent scowl. He looked at Robb like he was taking his measurements, then pushed a tent flap open and gestured for him to leave. Standing as tall as he was able, Robb limped out.

“Do not escort him,” Lord Lannister ordered the guards waiting outside. “He will return to his cage himself and ask to be locked in.” His sharp eyes raked over Robb’s bent head. “Won’t you, boy?”

Robb only considered defiance for the briefest moment before accepting he was in no condition for it. “I will, my lord.”

With a nod, Tywin let the tent flap fall, disappearing back inside.

Each step stoked the burn in Robb’s sore muscles and skin as he crossed back to the center of camp, lifting his still-cuffed hands behind his head and lacing his fingers together in an attempt to look unthreatening. But he found himself escorted in short order anyway, as Lannister soldiers noticed his unaccompanied journey with suspicion and took it upon themselves to remain close. Robb got the sense that Lord Tywin’s standing order not to touch him was the only thing keeping him safe during the few minutes of his walk. The way the men were stalking alongside him reminded him of the way Grey Wind used to hunt rabbits. Robb had never felt more like a rabbit in his life.

It was oddly a relief to see the hated cage again, to step inside and swing his own door shut. And Robb couldn’t help but feel a shred of amusement at the confused looks on the soldiers’ faces when he politely asked if they could locate the man with the key. His jailer arrived shortly—a new face, because Robb was certain the others had already been formally censured and relieved of this particular duty—and the click of the lock put an end to the saga.

Robb curled up on the floor, not bothering to shift around and try to get more comfortable, because with how battered and drained he felt right now, that would only be a losing game. At least today was sunny, and the rays felt pleasantly warm on his face as the hours passed until dusk crept in.

He used to have dreams all the time where he was a wolf, running through the forest and discovering secret trails, the silvery glint of moonlight on his fur. And if he couldn’t actually be free, he thought, it would have been nice to escape there in the darkness of sleep again.

But that night, like all the nights since that final battle, Robb did not dream at all.

Chapter 3: The Rabbit and The Arrow

It was another week before Robb saw Lord Tywin again. A week where he rattled around in his cage and whiplashed between feeling sorry for himself, angry, hopeless, a couple of times hopeful, resigned, determined, and a hundred other fleeting sentiments. He imagined killing Tywin in an assortment of ways (always in single combat, though), and Joffrey too while he was at it, and finally ending the chokehold they had on the realm.

His bruises were finally starting to fade when soldiers came to fetch him again one morning. As they accompanied him through camp, sunlight streamed through the mists rising from the grass, suffusing the air with a soft golden glow. Gold was a Lannister shade, so Robb would have preferred if the morning had been drab and grey; then at least his lungs could have been filled with the colors of home.

“What could you possibly want now?” Robb asked when he was deposited in front of Tywin, who was standing outside the entrance to his command tent.

Signaling for the guards to remove his chains—why would he do that after all this time?—Tywin gave him an arch look. “I’m glad to see you aren’t afraid of me. That would have been tedious. But it bears repeating that your manner of address requires work.”

Rubbing his chafed wrists, which seemed like they might bear the indentations of the cuffs forever at this point, Robb tried again. “What in all seven bloody hells could you possibly want now—my lord?” There was ironically something freeing about this: about not needing to act like a king anymore, not having anyone to impress or much of anything left to lose. And if he couldn’t use his anger as fuel to escape, at least he could use it to entertain himself.

Lannister obviously believed that not every battle was worth fighting. “I had originally thought to start when we reached King’s Landing, but it’s clear to me that you’d benefit from some more immediate training,” he answered. “On both your responsibilities and your attitude. I don’t hold it against you that you’ve grown a little too used to leading, but you’ll need some refreshers on how to follow.”

“You’re sure you don’t just want to kill me?” Robb was only half-joking.

Tywin was not even half-amused. “You’ll be spending the week with one of my current squires, during the day at least. Perhaps he will want to kill you.” He pushed the tent flap back and snapped his fingers. Seconds later, a boy emerged.

The squire looked to be around sixteen or seventeen, though he carried himself with the poise of someone far older, no doubt a product of Tywin’s unforgiving tutelage. Lean and well-formed but not large, with the slim, developing muscularity of a young man accustomed to labor and bladework, he wore an immaculate uniform accented in Lannister red and gold, the lion’s sigil proudly displayed on his chest. His neatly trimmed dark brown hair and amber eyes told Robb that he likely hailed from a different house than the lord he served.

“You will be professional,” Tywin said, meeting his eyes, and his tone didn’t even make it sound like a command, merely a prediction.

“Of course, my lord,” the boy replied.

“Will I?” Robb asked, both because he wanted a prediction of his own and because he rather enjoyed the brief surprise that ghosted over Tywin’s face when he was spoken to out of turn.

“I expect not,” Lannister replied, and disappeared back inside the tent.

The squire flicked his eyes up and down Robb, in his dirty tattered northern clothing, then introduced himself without a greeting. “Jeryd of House Serrett.”

“Robb of House Stark,” Robb offered in return.

The boy raised his eyebrows. “Yes, I’m aware. Follow me, please.”

Shadowing the boy (and feeling his guards behind him doing the same to him), Robb watched Jeryd as he walked. He held his posture perfectly and had clearly been taught to move with purpose, never too stiff or too relaxed. But there was something about it that gave Robb the sense that the squire was always conscious of himself—of how his every gesture was perceived.

Their first stop was inside Tywin’s personal tent. It was fairly sparse and utilitarian, far from the ostentatious Lannister grandeur Robb had expected. From what he knew of the family's penchant for excess and finery, he’d have thought Tywin would travel with a canopied bedframe, a plush mattress, silk sheets and fine linens embroidered with the house crest. But the bed was a regular soldier’s cot with a single sheet and crumpled woolen blanket. Next to it stood a small table with a lantern, a quill, papers, and a few books. On the other side of the tent there was nothing except a clothing trunk and an empty weapons rack to hold his sword.

“Obviously, we’ll be traveling most days,” Jeryd began. “When we stop for the night or to make camp for a longer stretch like now, you and I will be responsible for setting up Lord Tywin’s tents, taking care of his horses, cleaning his gear, and whatever else needs doing. We don’t have to unpack as much for the single overnights. And I’ll be the only one to handle his weapons, in case you get any ideas.”

The thought of learning such menial tasks, of being reduced to this, was something Robb found vaguely sickening, but it wasn’t like he had a choice. “I do have some ideas,” he said. “But go on.”

“There’s usually not much to straighten up in here. You can start by making the bed.” Jeryd crouched to wipe down a pair of boots with a cloth he’d seemingly manifested from the air.

Robb set about his task with as much dignity as he could muster, despite the overwhelming bitterness in his mouth.

Jeryd came over, inspecting his work with a critical eye. “You’ll need to make sure the bedding is as neat as can be. Lord Tywin is a particular man.”

“A particular man would do it himself,” Robb said, but he pulled the sheets taut and smooth.

“A powerful and wealthy particular man doesn’t have to,” Jeryd pointed out, and led him back outside. “I’ll show you the warhorse next.”

Tywin’s warhorse was a white stallion, presently not looking quite as white thanks to the thin layer of dust on him. He was easily as large as any horse Robb had ever seen, his broad chest and powerful haunches rippling with muscle beneath his coat. Most of the cavalry’s horses were tied to picket lines that stretched between trees at the edge of camp, but Tywin kept his stallion near his tent, tethered to the wagon that carried his supplies.

The young squire, with his smooth face and matching confidence, gestured to the animal. “Caring for Lord Tywin’s horses will be one of your primary duties. You will treat them as you would treat your own steed—better, if you know what’s good for you. This is Winter.”

Robb snorted. “Is it, now? I’d wager that Westerlandian mount has never even seen a snowfall.”

The boy’s face tightened in an expression resembling a sneer. “Dantis and I used to say when we were prepping him before a battle that Winter was coming for the North. Looks like now he has.”

Ignoring the jibe, Robb prodded at an unfamiliar detail. “Dantis?”

Jeryd briefly looked like he’d like to hit him. “Of House Marbrand. He was Lord Lannister’s main battle squire. That’ll be me now. He would have been a knight soon.”

It was obviously a painful subject, so Robb didn’t ask the specifics of when or how Dantis had died. “How many squires does he have?”

No more inclined to share the gory details himself, Jeryd snapped his mask back on, covering his memories with a blithe tone. “He only brought the two of us with him. There’s another at King’s Landing. Lord Tywin said he was too young and reckless and left him back for training.”

“How long have you been squiring him?”

“Since I was thirteen,” Jeryd said. “Four years now, and damn near half of it in your war. Can we get on with it, or do you have any more questions?”

“I’ll let you know if I think of any,” Robb answered. He liked how Jeryd had said "your war," as if Robb had just started it for fun and without provocation. 

The squire directed Robb to the wagon. “Winter doesn’t like to be snuck up on. Let him get a look at you first.”

As Robb approached, Lannister’s horse watched him with a cold, unblinking stare. It made Robb want to laugh. Even the animals here were trying to intimidate him.

“Looks like the horse version of Tywin himself,” he quipped to Jeryd.

He was answered with a correction. “Lord Tywin.”

“So you agree.”

All that got him was a blank and disdainful look.

“Tough audience,” Robb told the horse.

Winter shook his mane.

“At least he gets it,” Robb said to Jeryd.

The boy looked like he was just waiting for Robb to be done. When it seemed that he was, his explanation resumed. “Whether we’re traveling or not, Lord Tywin takes him for a ride around camp every morning, so he needs to be saddled by dawn, then cared for after. When we are traveling, he only rides Winter if there’s a possibility we’ll be engaged. Otherwise, he takes one of his mares. They’re kept with the generals’ horses. We’ll go there when we’re done here.”

Since the horse was still saddled from the morning ride, their first step was to remove the tack and set it aside. They’d clean and oil it afterward, Jeryd said, but their first priority was Winter himself.

“You have to start with the hooves,” the squire said, his voice cool and instructive. “The horse can’t carry its rider if its feet are not in good condition. If you don’t clean them, you’re just asking for trouble. Dull hooves, stones in the wrong places, infections…”

“Hooves are important for a horse?” Robb questioned. “First time in my life I’m hearing anything about that. Groundbreaking information.”

Jeryd shot him a withering glance. “All right, Stark. Since you’re an expert, how about I just leave you to it and we can see what Lord Tywin thinks of your work later?”

“Sounds good,” Robb said. “Although I think you’ll also be in trouble for abandoning your post.”

“That’s fine,” Jeryd replied with a haughty sniff. “Lord Lannister doesn’t need to take me to task very often anymore, but I’ll gladly take the whipping for this along with you today, if it makes you less of an annoying cunt tomorrow.” He spun around to leave.

That had not been professional. It was the first thing he’d said that made Robb like him. “Wait,” he said, and the boy looked over his shoulder. “Where’s the—where are the brushes and things?”

With a sigh, Jeryd turned back toward him.

“I’m sorry,” Robb said. “I’ll let you finish.”

The squire stepped over to the back of the wagon, nimbly swung himself up into it, and hopped back down with a crate of supplies. He set it down next to Winter and gestured meaningfully back to the ground at his feet.

Slowly, cautiously, so as not to spook him, Robb took a knee to inspect the stallion’s hooves and legs. The horse snorted impatiently. Jeryd stood a few paces away, his arms crossed, watching with the faintest of smirks. He probably expected Robb to earn at least one kick from the beast, but Robb had always cared for his own horses at Winterfell and even at times during the war, and was used to handling large animals. Taking a deep breath, he reached for the first hoof, gently lifting it with a firm but careful hand. He took his time, running his hand along the hoof to ensure there were no sharp stones or debris hidden in the crevices.

Jeryd hovered over him. “If you’re going to clean it, get a tool and do it properly,” the boy muttered.

Biting back a retort, Robb rummaged in the box for a hoof pick and scraped out the muck, then moved to the other side.

Once he finished the hooves, Jeryd instructed him to curry the horse’s coat. The curry comb, a small circular brush with short, stiff bristles, fit comfortably in his palm as he pressed it gently into the horse's hide and started brushing with firm strokes down Winter’s flank. With each pass, it pulled loose dirt and dried sweat from the white coat, lifting it up into the air in puffs of dust. Then, at the other squire’s prompting, he went over it all again with a wet brush.

It took him a while to groom the horse thoroughly enough to Jeryd’s satisfaction, during which time the boy recited common equestrian maladies Robb should be on the lookout for every time he touched one of the horses. Saddle sores, abscesses, signs of fever or fatigue, itching or cuts or abrasions, digestive problems, rain rot during extended periods of wet weather, fungal infections, respiratory issues, limping or an uneven gait…Robb knew a lot of it, but not all, and he let the squire speak without interruption. By the Others, horses could be fragile creatures.

As he finished and stepped back, the stallion tossed its head, snorting in irritation despite his coat being clean and sleek and white again. “Yes, so sorry for taking care of you, Winter, how awful of me,” Robb said, wiping his hands on his trousers.

After they'd cleaned and polished Winter's saddle and other tack, Jeryd took him to see Tywin’s two mares. That stop was more for introductory purposes, though; he’d done their care routine the night before, and they hadn’t been ridden since then, so all they needed was fresh water and hay. Apparently one of them liked to bite, which Robb wasn’t informed about until after he’d had the chance to test his reflexes and acquired a new rip in his sleeve at the shoulder. “Thanks for that,” he said.

“You lived.”

“What’s next?”

“You can help me collect some firewood,” Jeryd said. “I’ll be roasting a rabbit for the lord’s main course tonight. Normally, as the newest addition, you’d be the one to serve his supper and pour his wine while we’re traveling, but it was deemed sensible for me to continue with that task.”

“I had squires and they never brought me my meals,” Robb remarked. “Are you a squire or a servant?”

Jeryd gave him a sidelong glance, a touch of contempt creeping into his voice. “Do you think yourself above me, Stark? Whatever you were before, you’re a prisoner now, in case you need reminding. What do you have left? A proud name? A house that is scattered to the wind?”

Robb felt a flicker of rage, a short red glow of the hot, tight coil that lived in his chest these days. But regarding the bare facts of the matter, the boy was right. And even if he hadn’t been, he wasn’t about to get mired in an argument about it. “Let me know if you’d ever like me to take over supper duty,” he offered. “I heard that Lord Lannister’s favorite food is razor blades in a poison broth, and I think it might be a nice gesture to surprise him.”

“Certainly,” Jeryd agreed acidly. “As long as you pair the dish with his favorite drink. The tears of his enemies.”

It made Robb laugh, and the sound felt unfamiliar in his throat, because it had been a long time. Jeryd did not laugh, but he looked as though he may have been slightly pleased that Robb had.

They collected the firewood at the edge of the forest. Jeryd carried an axe to chop off pieces of larger logs and put Robb in charge of kindling. The guards lounged at a distance, watching him idly as he wandered along the treeline, piling sticks into his arms and casting the occasional glance into the woods, thinking about how much easier it would be this time. He was already right here, so he didn’t even have to execute some complicated subterfuge, and he wasn’t wearing any chains.

But something was making him feel uneasy. The guards’ inattention to him seemed…deliberate. And just from a logical perspective, Robb didn’t think that after what had happened, Lord Lannister would assign him an incompetent pair.

So he completed his task and didn’t try anything stupid.

It didn’t take him much longer to pinpoint the exact source of his disquiet.

The scout who’d captured Robb had been watching him today. There were always eyes on him here, yes, whether they were hateful or suspicious or curious, but he’d grown accustomed enough to that feeling to know that this one was somehow different. Robb had first noticed him in the morning, casually leaned up against a tree in view of where they were working, and hadn’t decided if it was worth commenting on. But when he just happened to cross their path again while he and Jeryd were carrying their firewood back from the forest, Robb knew with sudden certainty that his presence wasn’t a coincidence.

Right now, as they worked on building the fire outside Tywin’s personal tent, the man wasn’t even really trying to hide it. He was perched on a stump a short ways over, facing them, carving a piece of wood in his hand and lifting his eyes from time to time.

“Who is that?” Robb asked, jerking his head toward the scout, or whatever he was.

“Oh,” Jeryd said, offhanded. “You should probably try to run again, or steal a horse or something. That’s the lord’s assassin. I believe you’re a little pet project for him. Long journeys bore him, but he loves to hunt, whether or not he gets to kill.”

Robb knew he hadn’t been an ordinary tracker. No wonder his guards hadn’t seemed too jumpy or concerned about micromanaging his every move today. They had probably been hoping he’d run in the forest so they’d get a show. “Thanks for the advice,” he said. “Which horse do you think I should steal?”

It earned him a near-perfectly-suppressed smile. “Please steal Winter. I would love to see what would happen.”

Turning his head to look at the assassin directly, Robb lifted his hand in a wave. The man tipped two fingers in a lazy salute. His knife gleamed in the sunlight as he went back to his wooden sculpture.

“He’s going to bring me the rabbit to roast later,” Jeryd said, steepling the sturdiest kindling in the center of his fire pit.

“What’s your plan if he doesn’t catch one?”

“I don’t have another plan,” Jeryd replied serenely. “He’ll catch one.”

If Robb had been entertaining any thoughts about running again, he carved them away from his mind.

 

Shortly before sunset, they made their way back to the command tent, where Jeryd held the door flap open for Robb with pristine etiquette.

“Lord Tywin?” Jeryd clasped his hands behind his back. “We’ve finished the rounds.”

Lannister glanced up from his seat at the table. “And your day one report is?”

Jeryd didn’t look at Robb. “He performed adequately, sir.”

“Hm,” Tywin said. “Good. Start earlier tomorrow; we’ll break camp after dawn.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tywin hadn’t asked for Robb’s opinion about the day, so Robb contributed it himself. “He was adequate too, if you wanted to know.”

“Speak when you’re spoken to,” Tywin reprimanded him frostily.

Glancing between him and Jeryd, Robb asked, “Does that…count as being spoken to?”

As if he were exercising great patience, Tywin drew in a breath. “Say another word that isn’t ‘my lord’ and see what happens.”

The urge to say another word was so strong it almost felt like a physical need. In his periphery, Robb saw Jeryd watching him with an aloof sort of interest, like he could envision with absolute precision what would happen and wouldn’t mind seeing it play out. So he bit the inside of his cheek and stayed quiet.

After a moment, Tywin addressed Jeryd. “Walk the king back to his castle, wouldn’t you?”

The boy’s chin dipped in a single quick nod. “My lord.”

“He’s got you well trained,” Robb remarked as Jeryd accompanied him back to the cage.

“We all have our roles, Stark,” Jeryd replied airily. “I’m not ashamed to be good at mine. Even if you are ashamed to share it.”

Damn him, Robb thought, and he liked him a little more.

Once the prisoner had been safely locked back in for the night, Jeryd turned to leave, but stopped short after just a few steps. Robb looked past him and saw Lord Tywin’s tracker-scout-assassin approaching. He didn’t look at Robb and he didn’t say anything to Jeryd, merely held the dead rabbit out to him, dangling it by its back legs. The squire took it, deftly yanked the arrow out of its neck, and handed back the bloodied shaft. They walked off in different directions, and Robb looked back and forth between the rabbit and the arrow, each dripping a steady trail of red into the patches of golden light bathing the ground as the sun began to set.

A few evenings later, when Robb returned to the cage, he immediately spotted something unfamiliar perched between the bars. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It was a beautiful little sculpture, about the size of his palm, carved out of a rich, deep cherry wood. Robb couldn't help but admire the intricate details: the fur swirling in fine lines along the rabbit's back, the long, tapered ears, the lifelike alertness of the eyes, the hind legs tucked and poised as if ready to spring.

He knew the hunter was still watching him, after that, but he never saw him again.

Chapter 4: Mind Games

Over the next week, as he and Jeryd worked together, they fell into a kind of acerbic repartee that might have been insulting if it hadn’t reminded Robb of trading barbs with Jon some days (because gods knew his brother could have his prickly moments). It might have reminded him of Theon, too, if he'd let himself think about that.

The boy was quick-witted and competent, if a bit snobbish and testy, and it seemed like each day he relaxed a tiny bit more around Robb. It felt like a hard-fought battle victory the first—and so far only—time he made him laugh. Jeryd had looked utterly disgusted with himself, as if he couldn’t believe he’d stoop so low as to experience joy, and Robb couldn’t help but snicker himself at the sudden shift in his expression.

Still, despite those rare moments of fun, the indignity of Robb’s situation was clear, and his pride, though still there, was being whittled away to a fine, jagged edge. Each day on the road, he felt it crack a little more. He was still kept behind bars whenever they traveled, and overnight, and whenever he was free from the iron enclosure, he felt as though he were simply within the confines of a less visible cage.

It seemed that the pattern was to travel for five days, then take a two-day stop to rest and refresh the horses and the men. On the morning of the next camp day, Robb had been informed he’d be on his own (well, to the extent a guarded prisoner could be), since Jeryd was currently occupied by delivering messages to Tywin’s generals.

Lord Lannister had just returned from his morning ride, and after he’d dismounted, he gestured to the gear piled outside his tent: boots, gloves, flasks, saddlebags, and other travel accessories that had taken on the grime of the road. “Cleaning that is your job today. I’m assuming by now you know how.”

“Easy,” Robb said. “Like I said, I have plenty of spit for Lannister boots.”

“How convenient,” Tywin replied. “That brings me to another topic. The boy has done a fine job of teaching you a squire’s responsibilities, but it’s not his place to train the insolence out of you. Better for me to handle that part myself.”

Robb vaguely wondered if Lord Tywin even knew Jeryd’s name, or if all his squires were simply an interchangeable boy. “I look forward to it, my lord,” he said, in a manner that implied the insolence would not be trained out of him easily.

“Good, because I thought we could make a game of it today,” Tywin said, which did manage to put Robb on edge, because the lord didn’t seem much the type for merriment. “I’m going to have you count each time you disrespect me. Since I’m in a rather indulgent humor this morning, I’ll even let you have those first few for free. At the end of the day, I’ll bend you back over my war table and the final number is how many lashes you’ll receive.”

Just another way to taunt him, of course; that was what a Lannister ‘game’ would be. Robb wished he could cool the angry flush creeping up his neck.

“Best case scenario, it reminds you to mind your tongue,” Tywin continued. “Worst case, I get some entertainment out of it.”

“Fuck yourself, Lannister,” Robb said, staring him boldly in the eyes, his voice defiant. Without prompting, he added: “One.”

“A good start,” Tywin said dryly. “One, what?”

Robb kept his mouth stubbornly shut.

“Count that as well, then,” Tywin ordered.

“Two,” Robb said, and the lord arched an eyebrow. Realizing that they could go on this way indefinitely and it would not successfully prove any points, Robb corrected himself before Tywin could speak again. “Two, sir.”

“A wise move, boy. Perhaps you will be good at this game.”

The look Robb gave him was full of pure, unadulterated venom.

“Ah,” Tywin said, with a scolding note in his voice. “You will note I did not limit the conditions to verbal disrespect alone.”

Robb’s jaw tightened and he turned his eyes down.

“Count. It.”

“Three, my lord.”

“While you are with me, you will learn to control your emotions, or at least to conceal them,” Tywin told him. “And it will not be without pain, but you will be better for it in the end.”

Taking a deep breath, Robb lifted his head with veiled eyes and an impassive expression. “Is this better, my lord?”

“It is,” the older man said. “Though perhaps it would be in my own interest to let you show your hate so nakedly on your face, like a dog that snarls before it bites. Was your father so diligently truthful that he didn’t teach you some things should be hidden?”

“Don’t talk about my father,” Robb flung back, his mask slipping right back off.

It seemed like Tywin was debating making him count for that, but he must have decided against it, as he merely asked, “Why shouldn’t I?”

“You’ve no right,” Robb insisted. “After you—after your family—”

“Killed him? Had I been in King’s Landing, my grandson would have been brought to heel, Eddard Stark would be shivering with his bastard at the wall, and we’d have avoided this whole damned affair,” Tywin said, and Robb detected no lie in his words. “You are welcome to hate me regardless, but I’d imagine Starks prefer to hate for honest reasons.”

Robb absorbed this quietly. As much as he despised the entire Lannister name and house, he supposed he couldn’t judge each individual within it as if they thought and acted as a unit. “If you speak truly, Lord Tywin, then I…appreciate you saying so.”

Lannister grunted an acknowledgement and handed Robb his reins. “See to my horse.”

His new squire’s eyes looked like they were somewhere far away, the fire in them dimming. “Yes, sir,” he said, as if it were an automatic response already, but he was aware enough to cringe a bit when he realized it.

“That’s more like it,” Tywin said with a nod, and Robb wished he hadn’t.

“I don’t actually need your bloody approval,” he replied, though his heart wasn’t in it at the moment. He started leading the stallion away, heard the Lannister lord draw a breath, and beat him to it. “I know, my lord. Four.”

That time, Tywin’s scoff was an amused one. “You should start being more judicious, lad. There’s a lot of daylight left yet, and I can promise you will feel every lash you earn.”

Robb was getting the sense that the man didn’t lie as often as he’d expected.

 

The count was up to fourteen by the time Robb was standing in Lord Tywin’s tent at the end of the day. Not an unreasonable figure, he thought. He had practiced a great deal of restraint in their interactions today.

Except then it became fifteen when Lannister asked for a reminder of the number and Robb told him that if he didn’t remember it himself, it was zero, and asked if he could leave.

Sixteen when he tried to leave anyway and the guards had to escort him back in.

Seventeen when he refused to count sixteen because he didn’t think something as simple as walking should count.

“I think you are not good at this game after all,” Tywin said at that point.

“It’s a shit game,” Robb replied.

“And that would be…”

“Eighteen, my lord.”

It was hard to tell whether Lord Lannister was entertained or exasperated. “Do yourself a favor and take the position now, boy. At the rate you’re going, you’ll make me thrash you within an inch of your life if we wait much longer to settle up.”

Bending back over the strategy table certainly didn’t feel like doing himself a favor, but Robb did see the appeal of bringing the ceremonies to a close, so he complied.

“Since you managed to obey me so quickly, you can leave your trousers on,” Tywin told him.

“You are not only just, my lord, but merciful,” Robb muttered in response. He half-expected to be ordered to count nineteen, but perhaps Tywin agreed that he really was quite just and merciful and hadn’t registered the sarcasm.

This time, when the belt began snapping against his backside and legs, each lash slow and hard and living up to the promise, Robb forgot about Tywin’s game and started playing his own. One—when he died, you were supposed to—two—be the one to protect your family. So—three—where is your family? Four—Bran and Rickon—five—dead. Jon rotting for the rest of his—six—days with the criminals up at the—seven—Wall. Your mother missing—eight—and maybe dead too. Sansa and—nine—Arya still in the hands of Cersei—ten—and Joffrey, and gods know—eleven—what they’re doing to them—twelve.

The strap licked across the bottom curve of his rear three times in a row, and Robb breathed in staccato. Not a single—thirteen—fucking—fourteen—Stark—fifteen—at Winterfell.

And Theon, who I took for a brother… Sixteen. If I ever see him again—seventeen—Robb’s fists clenched—I’ll fucking kill him myself. The final blow was the harshest one. Mercifully, the way it burned raced up through his nerves and managed to knock Theon’s face right out of his head.

“At least you’re good at that part,” Tywin said, unwrapping the strap from his hand. “Perhaps we can play again sometime and see if your score improves.”

Robb didn’t have any mental energy left for a clever retort, so he stiffly rose and answered, “If you like, my lord.”

Lannister probably believed he was succeeding in beating some respect into him. Let him think so. Robb decided he would be cold in a crypt before it was ever true.

Chapter 5: Things Change in the Dark

When Robb arrived to feed and water Winter one morning, Lord Tywin passed him on his own way into the command tent and briefly paused. “Come inside when you’re finished. I want to speak with you.”

“Yes, sir,” Robb answered, trying to choose his own battles a little more prudently these days and wondering what this was about. He would have guessed that Tywin was just in the mood to toy with him again somehow, but the lord’s tone had sounded serious, without the edge of mockery that often sharpened his words. So he completed the chore, brushed the hay off his clothes, and went into the tent.

Casting him a glance when he entered, Lord Tywin, in his typical blunt fashion, stated, “I have news of your mother.” Robb thought he would use that against him somehow, force him to beg to hear whether she was even alive or dead. But he didn’t even make him wait. “Fled back to Riverrun.”

“You will pursue her there?” he asked, hiding his relief that he hadn’t had to hear the news of yet another loss. Still, the Riverlands would be even more vulnerable now, with precious few allies who could come to their aid in an invasion, so he couldn’t assume that the danger was past.

Tywin regarded him, likely weighing how much to share, Robb thought. “I see no need to waste the manpower. The Tully fish will be too weak to leap out of the water again in a hurry, and Lady Stark is rather short on children at the moment. She’d be a fool to act in a way that risks the two who are confirmed living.”

Robb’s throat closed, as if the air had been sucked out of the tent. Tywin was a man who spoke precisely, but he hoped this time it was only an error. “Two? You mean three.”

“Interesting,” Tywin said. “I thought perhaps you both would have known.”

He felt sick. Was it Sansa or Arya they’d killed, and when? Not Sansa, surely; she’d been seen too much and too publicly. Unless Joffrey had done something to her. That must have been it. Robb had lost the war and they hadn’t needed her as a bargaining chip anymore, so the young king had been free to follow his twisted little impulses. But then, it could have been Arya. She would have tried to fight. Or run. So maybe they’d caught her and…

He found his breath. “My sisters—”

“It’s no harm to tell you now, I suppose,” Tywin said, impassively watching the panic flit over his face. “The younger one has not been seen since the war began.”

Robb’s shoulders deflated with relief. Arya is alive, he thought, although in truth he had no good reason for his certainty. It had been a year and a half since he’d started marching south, and she’d been missing all this time? She’d not returned to Winterfell, or he would have heard. Had she fallen into someone else’s hands, better or worse than the Lannisters?

Either way, he did not care to visit the subject with Tywin. He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Have the searchers found Ser Jaime yet?”

“Perhaps Lady Catelyn and I can forge a bond over the anguish of a missing child,” Tywin stated, with a short shake of the head and a flat affect that did not suggest his nights had been particularly anguished. “It’s ironic that she freed Jaime when she did, because he would likely be a good sight freer and with us now if she had left him in his cage.”

Robb changed the subject, because they hadn’t discussed any of this yet and it seemed like a good time. “What do you plan to do with Winterfell, my lord?”

“Nothing, for now. Your Ironborn friend left it a burnt-out husk, last I heard,” Tywin said, and Robb knew he hadn’t been able to stop the pain from flashing across his expression. “Cheer up, Stark. If you’re a loyal dog, perhaps I’ll tell you to sit there again one day.”

Robb didn’t know if he meant it, or if he was just trying to give him a hope he could crush later, so he didn’t react.

“Speaking of loyalty,” Tywin continued, “we are ten days’ ride from King’s Landing now. I’m sure it won’t surprise you that your first order of business will be bending the knee to the Iron Throne.”

For some reason, it did surprise him; Robb had thought that part of their negotiations done. “I’ve bent the knee to you already, Lord Tywin,” he argued. “You are Hand of the King and perfectly able to officially accept my surrender on Joffrey’s behalf.”

“King Joffrey,” Tywin corrected him immediately. “Yes, what an excellent idea. The young northern upstart whose father was executed for challenging my grandson’s right to the throne, proceeded to do the same himself, and still struggles to use His Grace’s title—we do not need to make him publicly kneel.”

“I just…” Robb choked, hating how casually Tywin continued to mention his father. “I cannot kneel to him.”

Looking him up and down, Tywin replied, “Cannot? You appear to have two functioning knees, so I believe the words you’re searching for are ‘will not.’ Although those would also be false, boy, because you will, if you’ve decided you value your life at least. Refuse and you’ll be kneeling anyway for a sword, since I will not bother campaigning to keep your head off the Red Keep’s wall.”

“I would not expect you to,” Robb said, but the confidence he’d once felt in accepting his own death had wavered. Over the past few weeks, he’d grown rather attached to the idea of living to have his revenge on those who had wronged his family.

“And when you bend the knee, if you display anything other than complete deference and submission in that throne room, I can guarantee that you will not be the only Stark who suffers for it,” Tywin threatened. “If the peril to your own wellbeing isn’t enough of a deterrent, think of your redheaded sister. She’s paid for your actions before, did you know that? I would not have her bruised with Kingsguard fists in court like her dear betrothed apparently did after your rout of Ser Stafford at Oxcross, but once I am back in the city, there are certain protections I can afford her.” His eyes narrowed during the short, meaningful pause. “Or not.”

Robb’s fists clenched. It had been a mistake to show the depth of his care for his sisters’ safety just now, because of course Lannister would follow up by dangling it in front of him. “Sansa has nothing to do with any of this. That isn’t fair.”

“No,” Tywin agreed. “It isn’t fair, or noble, or just, and so forth. But it is true, and I believe you know that well enough that you will not make me prove it.”

Fucking bastard, Robb thought, but he used the opportunity to practice hiding the hatred that felt heavy in him all the way through to his bones. He relaxed his fists and looked at Tywin neutrally, picturing the man choking around a knife in his throat. “Thank you for making the situation clear to me, my lord.”

Lannister knew he hated him, Robb knew he knew it, but he didn’t miss the spark of humor that lit in his eyes. “You’re a smart boy. Give it some thought.”

“If you were smart, you’d be giving less thought to me and more to how soon Lord Renly’s war will be knocking at the gates,” Robb said in the same dispassionate tone. “Perhaps he will beat us there and I can bend the knee to him instead.”

Lord Tywin gestured to his maps and figures. “I give that a great deal of thought, in fact.” His gaze lingered on the maps before he turned it back to Robb. “You were winning our war until quite recently, I won’t pretend otherwise. I don't suppose you have any tactical advice to share?”

Robb was surprised to hear him admit that, but didn’t let himself be distracted by the flattery. “My only advice is to make up your mind before he arrives, my lord, because if you’re lucky you’ll have two choices when he does. Kneel next to me, or die.”

“I don’t know,” Tywin said thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound very lucky to me.”

 

Before they’d even reached King’s Landing, there was no war with Renly anymore, because there was no Renly anymore. Tywin’s luck had arrived after all, it seemed, in the form of a swirl of black smoke in the night, according to the rumors about the assassination that were being bandied around camp. Blood magic by his brother, they said. Renly’s army had scattered, and alliances shifted so quickly that it gave Robb whiplash.

They had made a longer camp than originally intended, and Tywin had been gone for days, taking Jeryd and a small contingent along. When they returned, Robb heard the rest of the soldiers scoffing at how now that they were united against Stannis, they’d have to fight side by side with the Tyrells’ pretty flower-sigiled armies when they’d been looking forward to wetting their blades with the rosy red blood of the Reach. They were stupid to speak that way, Robb thought, because with the size of his army, Mace Tyrell’s men would have wiped out what remained of the Lannister forces whether the Highgardeners wore roses on their armor and did ballet on the battlefield or not.

He was also bitter, because if Renly had pressed from the south instead of spending his time drinking and being merry and playing at being king, they could have defeated the Lannisters together, and all Robb would have wanted was freedom for the North. Instead, Renly had been content to let Robb chip away at Tywin’s armies to make the job easier to finish for himself later. Maybe the North would have been no more free under the reign of King Renly and an alliance had only ever been wishful thinking. Maybe none of this even made a difference.

When he heard that Joffrey had broken his betrothal with Sansa and agreed to wed Margaery Tyrell to make the alliance official, he was relieved and frightened at once. That had been the main thing keeping Sansa safe all this time, but then, she’d been with Joffrey, so safe was a relative term, especially after what Tywin had told him.

Plus, there was the fact that with Robb’s war over, they didn’t exactly have a reason to threaten her anymore. Except perhaps to continue keeping him in line, if it was really true they would let him live. Would they, now that he was no longer the brother of the future queen? Had that been a factor that had mattered before?

Robb’s head was spinning. His mind was built more for war than for politics. But it wasn’t like he had any power in the situation anymore, so he told himself he would simply try to accept his fate with grace, whatever it was.

 

When they arrived to King’s Landing at last, the army made a camp outside the city while a smaller retinue—Lord Lannister, his generals and lieutenants, and an escort of red-and-gold standard bearers—rode triumphantly in. The heroes returning from war.

Robb was carted along behind them in his cage, slumping back against the bars with his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to see all the people gawking at him through the streets. Some of them, disappointed by the lack of a performance, threw food and shouted at him—probably wanting him to spring up and pace and shake the bars and curse and snarl and turn into a wolf and be a proper villain to entertain them. He didn’t dignify their taunts with a response.

Upon their arrival to the Red Keep, Robb was yanked out of the cage and escorted—by a truly unnecessary number of gold-cloaked guards—to the dungeons, down to the third level, the black cells. There would be some days of feasting and celebration for the victorious army before his appointment with the Iron Throne. As the merriment ensued above, he would be kept deep down here, enclosed inside four walls of silent windowless stone, waiting to face the judgment of a false king.

He had managed to keep the hunter’s rabbit carving hidden away in an inner pocket, undiscovered when they’d searched him. Although he was unable to see a thing down here, he had looked at the carving often enough in his cage to know every detail. Now, leaning back against the wall in the darkness, he spent hours running his thumb over the smooth sculpted wood, feeling the motionless tension of it, the animal preparing for a leap it would never take.

That first night, a guard brought him supper, if one could call it that—half-molded bread, tossed through the door onto the dirty floor—and paused to smirk at him, his face distorted by the flickering torchlight. “This is the same cell they gave your father, did they tell you yet? The king ordered it specifically.”

Robb’s heart immediately ached at the thought that this was where Ned had spent the last weeks of his life, this small, dark, lonely place. He acted like he hadn’t even heard the guard, but when the door swung shut again, returning him to the inky blackness, he pressed his hand against the wall and closed his eyes and wondered if ghosts always traveled with their bones or if part of them ever stayed where they had died.

Chapter 6: Blood in the Throne Room

Summary:

Here's the summary for this chapter: Joffrey is in it and I hurt my own feelings writing it. Proceed accordingly.

It was hard to tell the passage of time or even day from night in the black cells, so Robb didn’t know when exactly he’d be summoned until his door was creaking open. Manacles were fastened around his wrists and ankles before he was hauled back up the dungeon stairs and found himself squinting in the light of the Red Keep’s hallways.

The goldcloaks roughly shoved him along to the tall oak-and-bronze doors of the throne room, and Robb’s heartbeat drummed in his ears as they swung open and revealed the size of the audience within. There must have been hundreds of people inside, but he didn’t want to look at them, or up ahead at the thrones at the room’s front, so he kept his eyes on the smooth stone floor as he was marched down the center aisle.

There was a brief silence once the guards released him and stepped away, and then Joffrey’s herald addressed him without welcome. “State your name.”

He forced himself to raise his head. “I am Robb of House Stark, son of Eddard Stark.” He didn’t presume to use any titles; it might anger the little blonde shit watching from the throne of swords.

“Why do you stand before us now?”

Taking a deep breath, Robb recited the lines Tywin had made him memorize on their final leg of the journey. “I have accepted my rightful defeat in battle after my treacherous attempt to secede from the Kingdoms and seize power for myself in the North. Today I have come before you, in the sight of gods and men, to pledge fealty to Joffrey Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm, and to throw myself upon his mercy.”

The memory drills had taken the form of another Lannister-style game, where he’d been bent over the usual table, forced to recite the lines scrawled on a page in front of him, and belted each time he paused too long or got a word wrong. In the last few days before their arrival, he’d had to do it without the page. Overall, the most painful words had been rightful, treacherous, fealty, Baratheon, King, and mercy: he had lost count of the lashes he’d taken for those across the many rounds they’d played, even though he had memorized the lines fairly quickly.

He could also still feel the fading finger-shaped bruises on his face from when he’d said “Joffrey Lannister” on the final day. Instead of the expected bite of the strap across the seat of his trousers after that very deliberate error, Lord Tywin had made him stand and turn, told him not to be disgusting, then backhanded him so hard it had spun him right back around. Even so, it had made Robb smile. (Unfortunately, Tywin had noticed that too, and he had gotten to play the rest of that day’s rounds bare-arsed to “assist him in wiping the smirk off his face.”)

But there had been no mistakes today. After repeating them to himself many more times during his stint in the dungeon, he’d delivered all the words perfectly. With the bitter taste of them lingering in his mouth, he knelt before the Iron Throne and waited.

Joffrey let Robb stay there for a few long moments, feeling the hard floor under his knees and the thick silence as he stared at him. Then he rose from his throne, paraded down the steps, and approached him, nonchalantly waving away the Kingsguard who tried to follow, like he didn’t consider Robb a threat he’d need defending from at all. With his matted hair, shackled hands and feet, tattered clothing, and hardly an inch of skin that wasn’t smeared with dirt from the road and the dungeon, Robb knew he looked every bit the part of the defeated foe, and he intended to fully play the role.

“I hear they’ve been calling you the Young Wolf,” Joffrey started, circling Robb as if he fancied himself the real predator. “You look more like a filthy little lost mutt to me.” He glanced to his mother, who pressed her mouth into a thin smile. “Seems it’s becoming a tradition to have Starks on their knees in front of me, swearing allegiance and begging for their lives.” After that, he cocked his blonde head, waiting for a response.

“It seems so, Your Grace,” Robb said dully. He was trying to think of this as just another battle—one with a singular mission. If Joffrey got a rise out of him, he would lose. But he would remember every word spoken, and the rage they inspired, and he would use them later, when the time came.

“Did you know we’ve been keeping you in the same cell in the dungeon, as well? What’s good for the gray wolf is good for the pup, I thought.”

It took effort to breathe through it. In and out, Robb thought, it’s not that hard, it’s not that hard. “It was clever of you, Your Grace.” He was glad the guard had already told him. It would have been worse to find out now.

“Your father did confess very nicely, but examples must be made when treachery is so blatant,” Joffrey said blithely. “You don’t look much like him, but it’s obvious you have the traitor’s blood just the same.”

Robb would have liked to make a pointed comment about boys who did not resemble their fathers. He did not speak.

“Luckily, my armies knew how to handle your little northern mob, and I know how to handle a mongrel who tries to bite me,” the boy king stated with great arrogance, and put all his force into a kick to Robb’s midsection. Joffrey was not particularly large or strong, so it took two more kicks until Robb was gasping for air. The two after that were just for fun.

Looking at his feet in mock shock, Joffrey pointed an accusing finger at his enemy. “I think you’ve dirtied my boot just by touching it, you wretched animal.”

“I am sorry, Your Grace,” Robb said, trying to catch his breath.

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” Joffrey huffed, pacing around, then turned to the rows of watchers, obviously in his element for the performance. “Should I make the beast clean its mess?”

He was rewarded with a scattering of affirmative shouts and claps. Stepping closer to Robb, he pointed at the boot he’d used to kick him. “Lick it clean for me, won’t you?”

For the first time, Robb hesitated.

“I’m doing you a favor, letting you cooperate willingly,” Joffrey said, staring down at him with vicious glee. “I could cut out your tongue and have you use it for a sponge.”

He would do it, too, and Robb did not think Tywin would stop him. He’d told him as much, really. “Remember your words and what I said, boy,” had been Lannister’s last words to him before he’d been shut in his cage for the ride into the city. “Your fate is in your own hands. Unless the circumstance is truly egregious, I will not interfere with His Grace’s decisions in front of a crowd.” Robb would have considered the loss of his tongue an immensely egregious circumstance, but he thought Lord Tywin might deem it a welcome improvement.

There were still a lot of things he wanted to say to a lot of people, and he’d need a tongue to do it, so he slowly bent forward.

“Wait,” Joffrey said, when Robb’s face was inches away, and he kicked him in the mouth. Robb could feel his jaw bruise and his lip split, the blood trickling down his chin and staining his beard. Then the king put his foot back on the ground, so Robb could see the red shine on the tip of his boot. “I thought you might appreciate if I added some of your own blood to the mix, for flavor. My Hound used to love the taste, before that dog ran off.” Robb hadn't noticed that Sandor Clegane was absent. He had been one of Joffrey's most loyal sworn swords. Robb wondered where the Hound had gone.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Robb muttered, and he knew the longer he took, the more risk he’d have of losing control to the anger rising in his chest and throat, so he just did as he’d been bidden without thinking, tasting the metallic tang of the blood mixed with earth and leather. He wondered, if he leapt to his feet now, whether he could snap the blonde boy’s neck before he was run through six ways by Kingsguard steel.

“That’s enough,” Joffrey said after a moment, and kicked him again under the chin, snapping his teeth shut and making him bite his cheek and tongue. A fresh rush of blood filled his mouth and dripped onto Joffrey’s boot and the throne room floor. “I don’t want it clean anymore. A king should decorate his clothing in the blood of his enemies. I will think of this moment fondly when I wear these boots again.”

Robb thought that he would think of it fondly, too, when Joffrey’s blood was on his clothes.

He saw the boy’s foot lift again and prepared for the impact. Instead, Joffrey stepped on the back of his head, bending it the rest of the way to the floor until his nose and cheek pressed into the blood that had pooled on the stone.

“It may not be a pretty sight, I know, but this is how you make sure a dog remembers what it’s done,” Joffrey announced to the crowd, grinding his boot into the side of Robb's face. There was applause. Robb wished he had more eyes so he could see who was applauding. 

Apparently satisfied for the time being, Joffrey whirled away from him and strode back to his throne with a theatrical flourish. Steepling his fingers, the king sat forward in the chair that had been built from the swords of better men. “Now, the matter of what to do with this traitor.”

Judgment time had arrived, by the sound of it, so Robb slowly raised himself back up to his knees, feeling the imprint of Joffrey's boot on one cheek and the tacky residue of blood coating the other. In the audience, there were shouts for his death. Joffrey smiled to hear them, then held up a hand and looked down at Robb magnanimously. “As much as it would please me to decorate the castle walls with another Stark head, my grandfather seems to enjoy the thought of keeping you on your knees to lick his boots. And since it does appear he’s been training you well, I’ve decided to indulge him.”

Robb kept his eyes down and swallowed the blood in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to spit it out and be accused of contempt.

“What do you say, Stark? Will you serve Lord Tywin loyally out of gratitude for keeping your miserable life?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Robb said, raising his head and speaking clearly. It took everything inside him to keep the absolute loathing he felt from infecting his words, his tone. But he did.

Joffrey’s eyes glittered cruelly. “Then crawl to your master, dog.”

It was clear he meant it literally. Robb glanced over at Tywin, who snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor at his side, his face a hard, expressionless mask. Joffrey’s mouth twisted in a sneer to see it. Without rising from his knees, Robb shuffled in the direction of his new lord.

“On all fours, dog,” Joffrey shrieked with obvious irritation.

The hate almost won, then—it was brimming up quickly, ready to spill out of him, his head be damned. Until Robb looked beyond Tywin and found Sansa in the audience, saw the shine of her water-filmed eyes, the tremble of her mouth. He knew with absolute certainty that Joffrey would taunt her with it, when his head was on a spike. Or, even if Joffrey didn’t order his death, Lord Lannister would make good on his own promise and let her suffer retribution for Robb’s defiance too.

So he lowered his hands to the floor and began to crawl the rest of the way, feeling hundreds of eyes on him as he did, and except for his sister’s, not one of them a friend. At first, it was deathly silent, but then a few titters of laughter spread around the cavernous hall, and Joffrey lounged back in his throne with a smug expression of delight. “Tell me, do my people think Robb Stark a good dog?”

The jeers started then: shouted insults mixed in with barks and howls. Robb tried to tune them out but could not, his blood so hot and angry in his veins that it hurt flowing through them. Part of him was almost glad, then, for Tywin’s threat to Sansa. He couldn’t think of anything else that would have kept him on the ground.

He reached Tywin’s side, and the room quieted again as the lord looked down. He waited a moment, then said, as crisp and cold as the morning after a snowfall in the North, “Sit.” The laughter resumed. Joffrey looked especially pleased that his infamously humorless grandfather was participating in his sport.

Robb straightened his back as he righted himself and sat back on his heels. It was almost over, he told himself. He felt utterly humiliated and alone, but he’d gotten through the worst.

“Mind that you obey your master and learn your tricks well, Stark,” the young king commanded. “I’m certain you’ll need to be kicked again from time to time, but if you behave, perhaps Lord Tywin will be kind enough to feed you table scraps.”

“I am grateful for your mercy, Your Grace,” Robb said monotonously.

He could see the moment that Joffrey grew bored with him. “I’ve more pressing business to attend to now,” he announced to the crowd. “There’s still one more war to win. Perhaps next time we assemble, I’ll have my Uncle Stannis on his knees for you.”

The Kingsguard surrounded Joffrey and Cersei as they swept down the center aisle of the throne room. The cheers accompanying their exit made Robb feel sick. These people couldn’t really love them—could they? They must be pretending—weren’t they? He had never been to King’s Landing before, and whether their adulation was real or fake, he missed the North so much already.

“Get up,” Tywin ordered in a clipped tone once Joffrey was gone and the rest of the assembly had started to disperse. Robb stood and looked for his sister where he’d seen her before. She was being escorted away, but her head was craned in his direction, and when she saw him rise, her face broke into a watery smile. It was the best thing Robb had seen in months.

Then Sansa was gone, and he was trailing behind Tywin, out of the throne room, through the Red Keep, and up the winding stairs into the Tower of the Hand. One guard removed his chains while another unlocked the door at the top of the steps, and then Robb was ushered inside. It was surreal to finally see it this way—the place where his father and sisters had lived for so short a time. Sunlight spilled through the high windows, and the first room, fashioned as a study with bookshelves and a desk, was decorated with tapestries and plush rugs that made it feel almost cozy. Robb wondered if they’d been happy here, before.

Shutting the door, Tywin turned to him. “Look at me,” he said, and Robb thought he sounded vaguely disgusted. After that display, it made perfect sense; even Robb felt disgusted with himself. But when he dutifully met Tywin’s gaze, it didn’t seem quite as hard as usual, and neither did his voice when he said, “I will never call you ‘dog’ again.”

Robb swallowed through a tight throat and managed a “My lord,” in response.

Tywin, seeming to want no further discussion, found a servant in an adjoining room and ordered a warm bath drawn. It wasn’t until Robb received the Hand’s gruff directive to “go clean yourself up, boy,” and had a maid thrust new clothes into his arms, that he realized it was for him. As the bath was filled with steaming buckets, Tywin’s steward, who must have moonlighted as a barber, made Robb sit on a stool and proceeded to hack off the wild war-and-travel tangles of his hair and give him a clean shave. He sat still, staring at the wall, and let him do it without comment.

When the door closed behind the steward and he sank into the water, bruised and bloody and truly alone, free from the observation of maids and guards and other prying eyes, Robb Stark let himself cry for the first time since a raven had arrived to Riverrun carrying the worst news of his life.

Notes:

Hate comments etc will be accepted in an orderly line below; let me know what you think of the little bastard!

Chapter 7: A Break

Robb was a Stark, and Starks didn’t have very many tears inside them at any given time. Once he’d exhausted his current supply, he dunked his head to wash them away. Then he finished scrubbing himself with the soap and rag he’d been provided, watching as his efforts turned the bathwater into an appealing shade of mud-puddle-brown. He was dry-eyed by the time he stood up and reached for the towel.

The new clothes turned out to be a squire’s uniform in Lannister colors, and putting it on made Robb gag so hard that he almost considered re-dressing in his own discarded outfit marinating in filth on the floor. But being clean made him realize just how badly his northern clothing reeked after nearly two months on the road, and he felt a bit of sympathy for the maid who went in after him and came out wearing a brave face as she carried the pile away to be burned. Robb had made sure to rescue the rabbit first.

Tywin was already gone but had left instructions for a guard to escort Robb to his quarters. He’d expected a cell in the dungeon to be his permanent lodging place, and hoped for a nicer one on the first level rather than the black cells, because he didn’t want to be down there in the dark anymore. But instead of a cell in any of the dungeon’s levels, he was given a servant’s room lower down at the base of the Tower of the Hand, outfitted with a keyed lock, a deadbolt on the outside, and a barred window with a view of the bay.

There was already a hot meal waiting inside for him when the guard took him down. Robb must have eaten it, because when he looked down the plate was empty, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it had tasted like, or if he had been hungry before he’d eaten. He lay down, and somehow night fell and morning came, but when he noticed the sun rising he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d slept.

Because even though he was clean and fed and actually had a real bed and it seemed as though he would be living in relative comfort compared to his time on the road, Robb finally felt a little broken after everything.

The first day, he’d been mostly left alone, and wondered if the break had been meant as a kind gesture—time to rest and recover. He didn’t want kind gestures, and he hadn’t rested. Instead, he had spent the morning and afternoon staring out the window and replaying yesterday’s events in his mind over and over so he wouldn’t forget them. He thought that he should probably be angry all over again each time he did it, but he wasn’t, not even once. Yesterday already felt like it had happened to someone else. That was why he had to remember it all: so he could be angry about it later, when he felt like it. If he felt like it.

In the evening he’d been summoned back upstairs to go over how things would change now that they were here.

“You’ve shown aptitude with the horses,” Lord Tywin said first, “so I’m planning to assign you to the stables. I don’t expect you can stir up very much trouble there.”

Robb didn’t care where he was assigned. “Do you think I could see Sansa soon, my lord?” he asked.

Lannister didn’t seem overly pleased that his own topic had been ignored, but he didn’t make an issue of it and answered his question. “No.”

He kept himself calm and still. “Why?”

“If you must know, the king has very explicitly forbidden your meeting, and I did not deem the point necessary to contest.”

Did it surprise him, that Tywin had just been lying to him to gain his compliance in the throne room? That he didn’t have as much sway as he’d implied over Joffrey when it came to Sansa? It didn’t surprise him and it did. Robb looked past Tywin at one of the tapestries and took a slow breath. “But—you said that you could—”

“I am not so old as to have forgotten my own words,” Tywin cut him off. “I said that there are protections I can offer her, not you, although it is you who bought her the rights to them. And in fact, I already had a discussion with my grandson this afternoon about his treatment of Lady Sansa and how the image it presents of his character is unbefitting of a king, even more so now that he is betrothed to another. We have arrived at an understanding.”

Robb was quiet for a moment. He supposed he had leapt to a judgment too quickly and there was some truth in the colloquial phrase after all, that Lannisters paid their debts. Now that he was familiar with the general tenor of Lord Tywin’s lectures himself, he hoped Joffrey had deeply hated having his faults and indiscretions bluntly laid out for him in that conversation. “She’ll be safe?”

“His Grace will not harm Lady Sansa or order her harmed by others again,” Tywin answered. “Her needs are being well provided for and their interactions will be limited moving forward.”

There were words left unsaid there, but Robb heard them anyway. “So the compromise is that he can only torment her invisibly now,” he said, not like he was angry, just like he was stating a fact, because of course Joffrey wouldn’t have let Sansa go without at least one more twist of the knife. “Hence the insistence on keeping us apart. Have I understood?”

Tywin’s head tilted briefly, to more or less confirm it. “Joffrey has never taken kindly to his toys being taken away. Be grateful he’s agreed not to throw this one at the wall anymore.”

“All right,” Robb said distantly. “Thank you.” It was something. It was good.

“Don’t thank me,” Tywin told him. “It wasn’t a favor.”

Before Lannister circled the topic back to his squirely duties, Robb was told quite firmly that he would put the whole arrangement, and thus Sansa, in danger if he attempted to circumvent the king’s prohibition. He knew the truth of that warning and didn’t plan to test it. If he somehow got to her, and was caught, he was sure Joffrey would come up with some creative ways to “allow them to see each other” that would be worse than the separation.

Still, he hated thinking about how they were physically so close to one another now, yet as far away as ever in any way that mattered. That was, of course, the point, and he knew that Joffrey had intended it to hurt him as much as Sansa, but knowing it didn’t change the effectiveness of the move. He had wanted to see her so he could lie to her that he was all right and maybe make her smile again, because he knew she would be worrying about him, just like he was about her. The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives, he thought in his father’s voice, the lone wolf dies, the lone wolf dies. But Sansa had been alone for much longer than he had, and if his little sister could do it, then he could.

His attention shifted back as Lord Tywin went on to briefly explain that Robb would be working with his collection of horses at King’s Landing. The animals were used mainly by himself and his personal guard regiment, who would also be taking turns guarding him. Robb listened, and said things like “yes, my lord,” at the appropriate times, and waited to go back to his room so he could press his hand against the bruises on his ribs and jaw and remember the things Joffrey had said, before he forgot them.

When he was dismissed, that was exactly what he did, but by the end of the night he had given up trying to be angry about the throne room. The more he had replayed it, the more he had come to the conclusion that he couldn’t be angry because it hadn’t actually been that bad. Robb had never been one to be bothered by a few bruises and a little blood before. He hadn’t had his tongue cut out in the end or been tortured at all, really. The most mortal wound had been to his pride, and looking back at it all from an outside view, he wasn’t sure why he had cared about that so much at the time. He certainly didn’t care right now. Strange, he thought, that he’d almost been willing to die for it a day ago.

Yesterday didn’t feel like it had happened to somebody else anymore, because he’d realized that he would be angrier right now if it had happened to somebody else. If Joffrey had made him watch as he kicked Sansa, for instance, or someone else he cared about, or even a stranger.

But he couldn’t be angry, because it had only happened to him, and that wasn’t so bad. He was the one who had lost the war.

Earlier that day, he had put the wooden rabbit in his window, perching on the ledge overlooking the Blackwater. He was still awake, and still thinking, when a particularly strong gust of the warm midnight wind blew through the bars and sent the carving clattering to the stone floor. The cherry wood was sturdy enough, and it didn’t shatter, but as Robb draped his head upside-down off the edge of the bed and looked at the rabbit lying there in the dim patch of moonlight, he could see that there was a small crack in its side now, although he couldn’t tell how deep it went.

He thought that if he were the rabbit, after sustaining a fall like that, he would want to be left on the floor for a little while. He didn’t pick it up.

Chapter 8: Testing Patience

Summary:

Robb tests Tywin's patience. Tywin tests his.

The next day, life had begun. The Red Keep had many stables, and the one that housed Tywin’s horses was shared with a handful of high-ranking knights. It was accessible from the Tower via a shortcut down a servants’ staircase, so Robb didn’t even have to cross through the castle and endure the inevitable whispers and stares there. Or, potentially even worse, looks of sympathy, if that was a feeling anyone was capable of here.

Jeryd had toured him around his section of the stables and explained his new duties in further detail, and had worked with him there for the first week. Well, it had actually been more like Jeryd working and Robb going through the motions, while the other squire huffed at him that the saddles weren’t shiny enough and the floors weren’t swept enough and the horses’ coats weren’t sleek enough. Robb’s response was usually to shrug indifferently and tell him to do it himself then, to which Jeryd always gave him an exasperated stare and then did do it himself.

But soon enough, the Serrett boy was called away to resume his other duties—joining Lord Tywin in meetings and running messages and training with weapons and doing all the other things that squires normally did when they were not also prisoners of war.

While there was a master of horse who generally kept an eye on everything, and the squires of other knights flitting in and out of the stables, and always at least one guard assigned to escort Robb back and forth from his room and stay near him, none of them tried to interact with him. That was good. He was grateful to be left alone.

He hadn’t been sleeping well since he’d been here, and his anger wasn’t the only thing that seemed like it had shut off—it was everything. Robb felt like he’d felt those first couple of weeks in his cage, after the battle: not alive, not dead, but somewhere in between. His thoughts hadn't shut off, because he would lie awake and think and think and think and not be able to stop, but it was just difficult to care, and he didn’t see why he should. He moved around the stables like a ghost, putting minimum effort into his tasks, enough so the horses wouldn’t suffer and so he could say the work was done, unable to muster up the will to be bothered about perfection.

Oddly, then, he started to miss being on the road. At least while they’d been traveling, life had felt more like a survival situation, and Robb thought that perhaps he knew how to survive better than he knew how to live. It was a good distraction, surviving. He missed huddling against the rain in his cage and cursing the sky. He missed the shackles on his wrists, because the solid iron had given him something tangible to chafe against.

Normally he’d see Lord Tywin once a day, when he brought him a saddled horse for his dawn ride, a habit he kept up in the city just like he’d done at camp. The first several days after he was on his own without Jeryd to cover for him, Lannister would just look at him and state the facts of what was wrong with the horse or his section of the stable. Then he’d wait for Robb’s apathetic acknowledgement and move along with an unstated assumption that those issues would be addressed by tomorrow.

They usually weren’t.

He kept his head down on the sixth day as he was lectured for the speck of dust on Tywin’s horse of the day—fine, maybe five or ten thousand specks, he hadn’t counted, but what difference did it really make? A dusty horse could still be ridden.

When it ended, Tywin stared down at his bent head and said something new. “So this is who you are? You get kicked and made to crawl around a bit and you decide that’s it for you?”

Robb felt a familiar spark of anger light up in his chest, and it warmed him a little to feel something other than dim and grey inside. But it was only a spark, and he didn’t feed it. “I suppose so, yes,” he said, staring at the ground. “Sir.”

“The northerners chose a sullen teenager as their king, is that it? And now you’re sulking that you’ve lost your crown?”

Robb shrugged. “I never wanted to be a king.”

“Then why were you one?”

“I felt it was my duty,” Robb said. “To my family. To the North.”

“And this is your duty now.”

The spark burned a little brighter, but Robb didn’t say anything.

Tywin turned his mount away. “The horse you bring me tomorrow had better be impeccable, or we are going to have problems.”

 

The horse he brought him the next day was not impeccable. When the Lord Hand mounted her and took the reins, he stopped dead, unfurled his fingers, and stared incredulously at the black grease that streaked across his palm. The look he gave Robb seemed about the same color. “Fetch me dry reins, boy. And a wet rag.”

Robb did as he’d been instructed and replaced the ointment-stained bridle lines as Tywin wiped his hands clean. Then Lannister’s eyes slid over the horse’s mane, and he dropped the rag and reached forward to rake through the knots with his fingers.

When he looked up, it wasn’t to Robb, but to his guard, who was standing against the wall. “Ensure that he finds his way up to the Tower of the Hand this evening.”

“My lord,” the guard confirmed.

Tywin dismounted the mare and left the stableyard without taking his dawn ride. Except for Robb’s eyes, which moved to watch him leave, he remained still until the Hand was gone.

The guard, meanwhile, was watching him with somewhat of an unimpressed expression.

Ignoring him, Robb went and found a brush to sort out the horse’s mane.

 

When the guard delivered him upstairs later, Tywin was at his desk in the room just beyond the entrance, the one Robb had thought was cozy. He hadn’t changed the decorations much, but it felt colder without the sunlight.

“Well,” Tywin said once he’d dismissed the guard. “I believe you’re quite aware of why you’re here.”

“Because of dust and a tangled mane,” Robb said, keeping his voice even so he couldn’t be accused of open impertinence.

Lord Lannister’s voice was always stern, just as a general rule, and it grew even steelier now. “I don’t know if you’re being spiteful or just negligent, and I don’t particularly care,” he said. “What I do care about is that it doesn’t continue. These are prized, well-bred animals, and they deserve more than the lazy, slovenly efforts of a boy who thinks he’s above the work.”

“Duly noted, my lord,” Robb said in the same vague tone, studying the rug at his feet.

“Clearly not, since you’ve had an entire week to duly note it. I normally wouldn’t have let it go this long, and now it’s obvious that was a mistake that needs correcting. So if the question you were asking is whether I’ll continue being lenient with you because I—what—feel bad for you? I will make sure you have the answer by the time you leave.”

Robb felt the small, warm glimmer of rage wake up in him again. He wasn’t even sure himself what question he’d been asking, and he was under no illusions about the kind of answer Lord Lannister meant, but he knew he absolutely did not want Tywin, or anyone else, to feel bad for him.

“You’ve had enough time to get used to a new environment, you’re being treated immensely well for your circumstances, and you’re free to mope around in your quarters when the day is done if that’s your preference,” Tywin continued briskly. “But you need to understand that before that time, you have a job to do and I expect it done properly. I’m not going to tolerate incompetence whether or not you think you have a valid excuse for it.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Robb said, tense and feeling the spark brighten, but still trying to keep his tone deferential.

Tywin made a short grunt of disapproval. “Listen to me,” he said, waiting for Robb to lift his head and then staring at him with the cold green eyes all Lannisters seemed to share. “I’m sure that before your father disciplined you, he said a lot of words that were pretty and wise, and you were appropriately penitent for your misdeeds, and then everything was right with the world. Am I close?”

“Yes,” Robb answered in a tight, controlled voice: may the Old Gods and the Seven damn the man equally. Even when Ned had deemed his actions worthy of a stricter hand, he had never been harsh with his words, only discussed the matter with him fairly, and Robb had not resented his father but had understood his own wrongs and tried to learn. He hadn’t ever hated him like he hated Tywin right now.

“Remorse means nothing to me,” Tywin told him crisply. “It is only a feeling, one of the most useless ones at that, and feelings have never changed the reality of an action or a consequence. When you’ve made a mistake, having regrets does not unmake it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I think so, my lord,” Robb said, thinking privately that it was one of the stupidest philosophies he’d ever heard.

Another unsatisfied noise. “Do you understand or do you not understand?”

Robb’s jaw tightened at his contemptuous tone. “I do.”

“Fine. Then bend over the desk and do not apologize to me again,” Tywin ordered, pressing his palms against the wooden surface as he stood. “You’ll be punished the same whether you’re sorry or not, so I suggest instead of wasting my time or your breath, you simply correct your errors in the future.”

When the spark finally caught fire inside him, the light and heat of it felt so good as they burned his exhaustion and sadness away to ash. “That suits me,” Robb told him, raising his chin higher and not moving his eyes away from the Lord Hand’s. “I wasn’t actually sorry to begin with. Just an old habit, I suppose.”

“Equally irrelevant, but now your intent is open disrespect,” Tywin said harshly. “It would benefit you to do as you’re told quickly, because if you say one more foolish thing I may lose my patience.”

“That would be a shame, Lord Tywin, since you’re such a patient man,” Robb replied without missing a beat, feeling so much more like himself with the anger back, and he thought it was worth it when the man closed the distance in a few brisk steps, grasped him by the arm, and twisted it behind his back until he’d bent him over the desk by force, slamming his cheek against the cool hard wood.

Robb expected to feel his strap next, but instead, Tywin released his arm. “I can be, when the circumstances are correct for it,” he said. “And tonight, I have nowhere else to be. Are you patient, boy?”

“No,” Robb said. “At least, I don’t think my advisors would have told you so.”

“And so here you are, all of eighteen years with a lost war to your name already,” Tywin mused. “But perhaps patience is something I can help you cultivate.”

“Why do you think I would want your help?” Robb spat back.

Even the way Tywin exhaled sounded scornful. “Why do you think I would care what you want?”

“Are you going to whip me or fucking not?” Robb demanded. “I have things to do.” Like going back to his room and staring at the ceiling and not sleeping.

“Not yet,” the lord answered, so Robb started to get up, until a hand on his back pushed him back down. “But you’re going to stay right here until I feel like it.”

“And if I don’t?”

The hand withdrew, perhaps to see if he’d take the opportunity to rise again. “Then I suppose you’ll get your beating tonight, and we’ll try again tomorrow, and if need be the next day, until you can be patient enough to wait.”

It didn’t take a lot of analysis for Robb to figure out the better deal. He put his head in his arms and heard Tywin walking away. Papers rustling. The creak of an armchair. A quill tapping against an inkpot and scratching across a page. All perfectly mundane noises that set Robb’s teeth on edge and made his insides burn. As glad as he had been, at first, to get that rush of inner fire back, it didn’t feel as good this way, with nowhere to go.

It had been so much easier for Robb to control his anger when he was the king in the North, when he’d held the weight of leadership on his shoulders, when others looked to every move he made to determine his worth. The men had respected him as a swift decision-maker and cool-headed strategist, and he had been, for a time. As long as he had kept a tight leash on his other side—the high temper that could rush into his blood like a sudden storm. The impulsivity and rage that had lost him the battle he’d flung himself into after the news of his brothers’ deaths and everything that had followed.

During most of the war for the North, he had always saved his fury for the battles themselves, and it had served him well; he’d been lethal with a sword in his hand, his wolf at his side, and the fire in his blood. But that final time, he hadn’t made himself save it. Hadn’t been patient enough to take the time to think, and to plan, and to wait. Hadn’t been in control of the other side at all.

His father had known about that side and had tried to train him to manage it, to give him the tools to separate feelings from decisions, and they had worked well enough, mostly. But Eddard Stark had had an entirely different nature—calm and steady and simple—and the kind of thoughtful, measured action he always spoke about came easily to him, in a way it didn’t to Robb. Then that same nature had gotten Ned killed, and maybe that was why Robb didn’t know who to be anymore. Did he still want to emulate his father, who he’d looked up to his whole life? Did it matter whether he did or not, now that he was no one?

It felt like Tywin left him there for hours, bent over the desk twisting himself up with his own thoughts, but Robb had no way to assess how much time was truly passing. Enough that it was becoming physically uncomfortable to stay in this position: his back was starting to ache and one of his legs fell asleep, then prickled its way back into wakefulness. But he didn’t move, because it didn’t make sense to waste all this waiting and frustration just to have to do it again tomorrow. And because he had to prove to himself that he could be patient, too, when he was determined to, and he didn’t have to do anything just because his blood was hot for it. Even if that also proved that it really had been his own fault when he’d lost control.

Eventually, he heard Tywin rise and approach again. “Are you ready to follow orders and speak to me with respect?”

The surge of anger had come back down to a simmer, and Robb was ready for anything other than this. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. Any other response would probably get him another hour.

He heard the metallic clink of Tywin’s buckle. “Trousers.”

Robb untied them and let them fall, without rising in case Lannister was trying to set a trap and accuse him of getting up before he’d been permitted to.

“For what it’s worth, I’m impressed,” Tywin said, tapping the cool leather of his belt against his squire’s bared bottom. “I believe you’d have been stubborn enough to stay there all night. I didn't think you'd do it on the first try.”

“I live to please, my lord.” Sarcasm like that didn’t seem to get Robb in more trouble, he’d put together: the kind where he used a neutral tone and wasn’t directly insulting or defiant. He actually had gotten the sense sometimes that Tywin had started to enjoy bantering with him during the last stint of their journey, provided that he didn’t cross the line. There were just plenty of times Robb didn’t care about the line.

The sting of Tywin’s strap across his backside seemed like a familiar feeling now. At least it was less painful than patience.

Maybe you are still just a boy, Robb told himself. A stupid impulsive boy who can’t control his feelings or his actions or his tongue. Who forgot everything your father taught you as soon as life got hard. He’d be disappointed to see what you became. It’s just as well you lost the war. You could never have actually been a good king.

It was like the mental lashing was keeping time with the physical one, his self-reproach and shame burning as steadily as the heat in his skin while Tywin provided the answer he’d promised to whatever question Robb had and hadn’t asked. He wasn’t gentle about it, and Robb was glad for that, because if he had been it would have meant he did feel bad for him, and that was a thought he could barely stand. Robb Stark was not a victim and he did not want Tywin Lannister’s pity.

But he hadn’t had to spare the worry, because the thrashing he got was just as hard as usual and made a fitting match for all his thoughts. The strap stayed relentlessly in motion until he could feel his heartbeat pulse from his arse to his thighs, then slowed a bit but continued to smack crisply and sharply against his already sore skin until he was sure it had to be glowing as crimson as his anger had inside him. As was his tradition, Robb kept his teeth clamped shut and endured the punishment without a sound. That was that: Tywin didn’t feel bad for him, and Robb didn’t feel bad for himself, so they were on the same page.

There was one mercy that he was grateful for, at the end, which was that when the belt stopped, his mind did too. He was too worn out to think anymore. And it was impossible to tell where pain ended and relief began.

Well, a second mercy too—that Tywin didn’t make him go through any sort of humiliating ritual of apologizing, or promising he’d do better, or even saying anything at all. They both understood the options: he would do better, or he wouldn’t, and this wouldn’t happen again, or it would.

After Lord Tywin delivered him back to the guard outside and he was escorted to his room, Robb curled up on the floor, fell into his empty head, and slept hard, deep, and dreamless.

Chapter 9: The Ambush

It was better, at least, once he was sleeping again. Robb woke that first morning with a sore body but a clearer head, took a deep breath, and peeled himself off the floor. While he was down there he picked the wooden rabbit up too and placed it on his tiny table under the window, where it would be safer from the wind.

Then, over the following week, he gradually came back to life, in the way that he’d always liked to see the first bits of grass jutting up out of the thawing earth after a hard freeze. Feeling a little again. Caring a little again. Getting other pieces of himself back besides the anger, which had burned itself up so hot that night that it seemed to be out of fuel for a little while; that was always its way.

He even started to gain a bit of appreciation for the simplicity of his routine in the stables. The horses didn’t care about battles or politics or who he was or what he’d done. There were twelve of them in his section, and their trust, while not easy to earn, was straightforward, rooted in the care he gave them.

Sometimes Jeryd would come down to get a horse for one of his errands. While he was there he would always toss some sort of sarcastic remark at Robb, and he looked mildly gratified when Robb started throwing them back at him again. He had been trying so hard to get under Robb’s skin that first week they’d been here working together, but Robb had been a ghost then, and ghosts didn’t have skin, so it had been a fruitless endeavor. Now that Robb was finding his way back to personhood, Jeryd would occasionally stay and help out a bit if he had nothing else to do, although it really seemed more like an excuse to continue harassing him.

It did manage to genuinely rankle Robb the day Jeryd told him how much better he looked dressed in Lannister colors. Robb told the other squire that he would look a great deal better in black and blue, now that he’d brought it up. But when he approached with a generous offer to help the boy attire himself in the suggested shades, Jeryd only gave him an infuriating smirk and hopped outside the fences of the stableyard, at which point the guard stopped Robb from following him. Jeryd folded his arms, tilted his head, and watched that encounter with obvious satisfaction from his safe vantage point.

“Smart move to run away,” Robb called through the bottom of the fence, which was currently at eye level since the rest of his face was at dirt level, and the squire held his posture haughtily straight as he walked off at a speed just slow enough to convey that he certainly wasn’t running anywhere, thank you. Robb rolled his eyes and hid a small smile as the guard let him up and wondered if maybe Jeryd missed life on the road a little bit too.

There were other things to appreciate as well. He got to watch the sunrise every morning and feel the pleasant ache of a day of work in his arms by nightfall. During the time in between, he managed to give Lord Tywin little to criticize, even regarding his attitude, that whole week and into the next. Whether or not Robb felt peaceful inside all the time, it was an undeniably peaceful sort of life.

Although peaceful wasn’t the word he would have chosen one morning when he arrived in a rush to prepare a horse for the dawn ride, a little late because he hadn’t woken until the guard had started pounding on his door, then came in and shook him awake and forced him to groggily get ready.

And the word certainly didn’t apply when the instant after he closed the gate to the stableyard, he saw a blur to his left, immediately followed by the sudden thudding pain of a fist to the jaw. Robb reacted quickly, leaning back to avoid the second blow and dropping into a fighting stance by instinct.

In the brief pause that followed, he was able to get a good look at his opponent.

Judging by his uniform, this boy must have been the other squire Jeryd had mentioned a while back, the one Lord Tywin had left behind. He was definitely younger, fourteen or fifteen perhaps, but broad-shouldered and built more solidly than Jeryd with his slender athleticism. Some of his features had yet to settle into manhood, like his jaw, although right now it was clenched so hard that the lingering traces of softness were barely visible. His sandy brown hair was slightly too long and fell into his eyes, which Robb found interesting, because it seemed like the kind of small and meaningless form of disorder that Lord Lannister would hate.

“That was for my brother,” the boy said. “And so is this.” He swung again, but since he’d made the immensely basic tactical error of giving Robb a warning, he caught the boy’s arm before his fist connected, then swept his feet out from under him with a swift hook of his own leg.

“Who are you?” Robb asked, pinning him down in the hay. “Who’s your brother?”

“Garrick of House Lydden,” the boy spat, and drove a powerful knee into his stomach, which briefly winded Robb and gave his opponent a chance to wriggle out from under him. “My brother was Mateo Lydden and he died at Oxcross. Ambushed in the night, damn you. He never even had a chance.” His voice surged with fury at every word.

It was poetic in a way, Robb thought, that Garrick had set up an ambush of his own in return, and he let the boy leap on top of him and get a few more hits in before he started grappling to pin him again. But it wasn’t easy, because the boy was strong, and he was angry, and Robb didn’t really want to have to hurt him to overpower him.

Their struggle was brought to an abrupt halt by a stern voice. “What is the meaning of this?” Tywin had entered the yard and was observing the two of them with obvious disapproval.

The young squire leapt to his feet, his ruddy face suddenly going a bit paler, and Robb stood as well, brushing off the dirt and hay.

Lord Lannister’s chilly gaze swept over both of them. It focused on Garrick first. “You aren’t supposed to be down here. Explain.”

“I attacked him, my lord,” the boy said. It surprised Robb that he hadn’t tried to divvy up the blame or make excuses.

“And he?”

Again, the response was honest and direct: “Defended himself fairly, my lord.”

Tywin nodded, and the look moved to Robb. “You agree with this narrative?”

“Don’t punish him, sir,” Robb said, understanding where the arc of this interrogation was headed, and it was Garrick’s turn to look taken aback. “His brother died in a battle I planned.”

“I am quite aware of the history, but I fail to see how that is relevant today, and it is not what I asked,” the Hand replied.

“He wanted justice for his kin,” Robb said, even though Tywin had not asked that either.

“Vengeance,” Tywin corrected. “When you led men, were you in the habit of allowing them to take revenge according to their own will?”

Robb was cornered there, and he knew it. “No, sir.”

“No, indeed,” Tywin agreed. “I obviously heard about the Karstark incident. You swung the sword yourself.”

“That was—”

Before he could say different, the lord finished the sentence for him: “The same, except I don't plan to kill him.” He looked to Garrick and jerked his head at the exterior door to the stable’s equipment room. “Go on, boy.” His squire obeyed instantly.

“Stay right where you are,” Tywin told Robb before he shut the door behind them. “And do not presume to instruct me again.”

Frustrated at having his objections dismissed but aware there was nothing more he could do, Robb studied the ground and tried to tune out the distinctive, repetitive snap of leather against skin that followed shortly thereafter, and the muffled yelps that joined it near the end. Lord Tywin had intended for him to hear it, damn him: for the message to be you don’t get to decide anymore. 

When they emerged, the squire looked a lot more subdued, although Robb didn’t stare, didn’t want to make him feel embarrassed or judged.

“You want to fight, you do it in the practice yard,” Tywin told him with unassailable finality.

“Yes, sir,” Garrick said, casting his slightly red-rimmed eyes to the ground and then seeming to catch himself and raising them up and forward again.

Pointing at Robb, Lannister added, “The king of the North is not permitted in the practice yard or near weapons at all. Where can you fight him?”

“Nowhere, sir.”

“Very good,” his lord said, nodding crisply.

“Can he defend himself if I start it?” Robb asked, with barely concealed impertinence. The impulse had only just struck him, but he was still fully cognizant of what he was doing. Although he hadn’t been able to talk Tywin out of disciplining the younger squire for attacking him, he could at least level the playing field.

The look Tywin aimed at him then was positively glacial. “Are you so determined to be next, boy?”

Raised in the North, Robb did not freeze easily. “Am I not allowed to ask questions?”

“Not when you’re attempting to find loopholes to defy my instructions.” Tywin gestured to the room he’d just exited. “Good work, you’ve secured yourself a trip inside after all.”

That had been easy. Robb glanced briefly at Garrick—who was watching the exchange with a hint of disbelief that anyone could be so bold with such an intimidating man—and went to take his turn.

Instead of taking off his own belt when they entered, Tywin picked up a strap that was already lying out, the kind typically used for cinching saddles. Seeing it, Robb felt like he had already been struck. This was all too similar to his father’s custom at Winterfell, in a simpler time: the scent of wood and leather in the tack supply room, the worn brown saddle strap that had served two lives helping to manage House Stark’s horses and then its boys. Fuck, the last time had even been for fighting, too; he and Jon and Theon had managed to get into a bit of a bar brawl and he'd punched the sheriff of Wintertown. He hadn’t known it would be the last time, but a little over a month after that day, his father had been named Hand and gone south, and Robb had never seen him again.

Shaking away the memory, Robb tore his eyes away and raised them to see Lord Tywin observing him. Lannister looked at the strap in his hand, then back at his newest squire, and Robb had a sense that he could tell exactly what was in his head, and he hated that he knew. But instead of questioning or taunting him like he expected, all Tywin did was tap the long table against the wall that they used to clean and polish the riding gear, and all he said was, “I believe you’re familiar with the procedure.”

And, well, Robb was, so he lowered his trousers and bent to put his forearms on the table. Lord Tywin repeated the whipping he’d given Garrick, and every time the leather snapped down, Robb thought bitterly about the northern boys whose brothers would also not be coming home because he hadn’t been a good enough leader. He bit his cheek, made it through without repeating the younger lad’s cries, and felt cleaner, somehow, once it was over.

Although the strapping had once again been administered thoroughly and without sympathy, Robb had to admit that if he was being honest with himself, he’d objectively taken worse from his father. Ned didn’t like to take his sons out to the tack room very often, and that preference was generally served well by making it count when he did. Given the similar circumstances, it was impossible not to think back and compare the situations, but Robb tried not to dwell on it for longer than it took to replace his trousers.

Afterward, he was directed back out into the stableyard, where Tywin asked them both, “Are we quite finished?” Once he’d received two affirmative responses, he told Robb, “I don’t need my horse until noon today.”

Robb nodded. "She'll be ready, my lord."

The Hand addressed Garrick next. “Since you took the initiative to come down here despite my instructions to keep yourself away, you might as well assist with the stable duties this morning.”

“Yes, my lord,” the squire answered, not sounding happy about it but clearly controlling his tone so it wouldn’t come off as surly.

Lord Tywin turned to leave, but cast him one more throwaway glance. “And cut your hair. Or come up and ask Lyle to do it.”

Garrick tried unsuccessfully to brush the unruly bit out of his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Once Tywin was gone and it was just the two of them standing side by side, Robb looked up at the sky, which was always so blue here, and said, “I’m sorry about your brother.” And he meant it, in a way. War was war, and he wasn’t sorry that he’d had to kill Lannister soldiers, but he was sorry to have ended the lives of brothers and fathers and husbands and sons. Maybe he had cut Mateo down himself at Oxcross. Grey Wind had been in such a frenzy that night—maybe direwolf teeth had been the weapon that killed Garrick’s brother.

Garrick was staring the opposite direction, at the ground, and he muttered, “Forget about it.”

“I won’t, and you won’t, and maybe apologies are as worthless to you as they are to him,” Robb answered, “but I am sorry for it all the same.” This boy would never be friendly to him, he knew that and didn’t blame him, but perhaps he had bought some civility at least.

“You fill their water buckets,” Garrick said. “I’ll do the hay.”

Chapter 10: Sharp Edges

Summary:

In which Robb has some deep trauma and he can't ignore his way past it.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing, being able to feel again. Because there were a lot of things Robb hadn’t really had the time or space to think about yet, or feel about. And now he had nothing but time and space. Especially in the nights. Since the reprieve hadn’t lasted too much longer before he suddenly wasn’t sleeping well again. And then he was tired again. And angry again.

The source of his insomnia now was easy to identify. He couldn’t sleep because when he tried to close his eyes, the faces of the dead swam into his mind.

He thought about walking the fields after every battle and closing the glassy wide-open eyes of the men who had died for a war that didn’t mean anything now.

He remembered the surprised expression on his uncle Edmure’s face when he felt the fatal bite of a spear he’d never seen coming, and the blood that had dripped from his mouth as he looked down at it before he’d toppled from his horse.

He thought a lot about Grey Wind, and how he’d been accustomed to seeing the direwolf’s smoke-grey fur stained in red after a battle, but that the blood had rarely been his own before, and there had been so much of it that day.

But even more often than that, he found himself picturing Bran and Rickon’s last day. What had it been like, after they’d been caught? Had they tried to accept their deaths bravely? They were only boys. Had they pleaded for their lives? Had Theon stared at them without mercy and denied them? Had he ever looked at Robb with the same darkness in his eyes, while Robb had just been too blind to see it? Jon had never liked the Greyjoy ward much, and Robb wished he had paid more attention to why. Growing up, he had always managed to forget that Theon was not really a fostered son of Winterfell, but a prisoner. Perhaps for all those years, the same kernel of hate had lived in his heart that inhabited Robb’s now.

It was wearing at him. Sometimes, when he found himself tossing and turning in his bed, he’d move to the floor, and that seemed to help at first. But soon enough, the visions followed him down there too. When he did manage to sleep, it was only in scattered hours here and there. He would have liked to just be numb again, because on the worst nights, he felt as though he’d killed them all himself.

In the mornings, after nights like that, he felt like a sharp edge waiting for something to cut.

And the best weapon he had was his tongue, and the best target he had was Lord Tywin, so even though wielding it got him sent back to the equipment room every single time—where he would clench his fists and let the hate and anger flare hot enough to burn away the regret while he was soundly chastised for the insolence—at least it got it out of his system. For a little while. Until the memories came back and the cycle repeated.

It went on for weeks this way, back and forth and back again. Robb wondered when Tywin would get tired of it and send him back to the dungeon, or belatedly arrange his execution, and find a different squire. But even though he would chide him about the disrespect and punish him for it, Lannister had started to seem almost entertained by those moments—even by the worst things he said. That usually just made Robb hate him even more, because he wasn’t trying to amuse him, damn him.

The morning after his next bad night, he put in at least a token effort to resist it when after one of Tywin’s dawn rides, the Hand took a brief tour around the stables, which were currently in a bit of disarray, and told him, “You’re slipping again. Fix it.”

“I’m trying, my lord,” Robb said, his hands squeezing into fists instinctively, even though the criticism had been relatively mild.

It had been his attempt at a peaceful compromise, but of course, he should have known that Tywin wouldn’t like answers like that. “Did I tell you to try or did I tell you to fix it?”

“Not sure,” Robb replied, and stopped trying, because fuck it. “I prefer not to waste a lot of space in my head remembering the things you say.”

He had hoped the insult would make Tywin angrier than it did. His adrenaline was primed for a fight, not for the chilly look and calm response he got. “Still can’t mind your tongue, boy? I know you’re capable of it. I can’t imagine you ever spoke to Lord Eddard this way.”

“If you’re trying to be more like my father, just say the word and I can relieve you of your head,” Robb offered through a clenched jaw.

“Nicely done, if a bit grim,” Tywin said. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have a joke like that in you.”

Robb hated him. “Give me a sword and see if I’m joking.”

Tywin drew his sword and offered Robb the hilt. When Robb looked down at it and didn’t take it, he asked, “What’s the matter, Stark? Did you catch yourself saying something you don’t mean?”

“I can’t do it like that,” Robb mumbled, deflating a bit. “You’d need one too to make it fair, remember?”

“Ah, yes,” Tywin said, sheathing it again. “What a pity that I only have the one.” He turned to leave, then looked back. “I have an early meeting and no time for it this morning, but in case you make the mistake of believing that I’ll tolerate my squires threatening to decapitate me, you will come upstairs tonight for a more detailed conversation about the issue.”

Robb stared at the ground until well after he was gone, filled with tiny shreds of a hundred feelings at once. Some of them didn’t seem like they should exist within the same person. Like the way he resented how powerless he felt here, but also found immense relief in knowing he didn’t hold power over others anymore, because now the weight of their lives and deaths didn’t rest on him.

Or the way he simultaneously felt like he didn’t want to die anymore himself, and—was ashamed, maybe, that he was alive? Like it had been his destiny to die on the battlefield the day the North fell, but instead he had let others pay the price of his war for him.

Or how he still hated Tywin so much but also couldn’t escape the pinpricks of confused gratitude that stabbed into the hate when he thought about how much worse his life could be right now. He was housed, clothed, clean, fed, entrusted with a job that he kind of liked and that actually mattered—not rotting in a dungeon, not licking anyone’s boots, not even being taunted with how far he had fallen (except when Jeryd was in the mood, which was fine). Seeing Lord Tywin handle the issue with Garrick had proved that Robb wasn’t even being treated more harshly than one of his actual, non-captive squires would be.

And for that matter, Tywin’s latest comment about his father might have been truer than he knew. If Robb had ever made a habit of speaking so rudely to Ned Stark, he presumed he would only have distant memories of his arse by now. Or at least his ears, since they’d doubtless have fallen off during the long discussions about his attitude. Certainly his knees, which would have long since worn to dust meditating over his words in the godswood.

The gods who dwelt there had known Robb well for his anger in his youth. There had been one year, when he was twelve or thirteen or somewhere in between, that once his siblings had started to wonder where he was on some given day, the first place they searched was the ancient grove with the weirwood heart tree. And their guess would often be right. Theon would army-crawl through the trees and try to tempt him to run away, then crawl back off when Robb would refuse. Or Jon would sprawl out next to him and stare up into the crimson leaves watching little Bran scurry around the branches, or Arya would cheekily splash him with some water from the black pool since he couldn’t get up to chase her for it. They would try to make Robb laugh and forget why he’d been angry until he was allowed to leave, even if one of them had been the reason he was there the week before.

Sometimes on those days, Ned came back, took in the scene, then said he distinctly remembered only sending one of them to the godswood and that the point of this place was to leave your distractions behind, not have them follow you. Depending on the day, Robb’s siblings would either quickly scatter or insist that no, he actually had sent them all, in which case Ned would don an even more serious face and assign them some time of their own for the lie. That suited them fine because it meant they got to stay, and they’d soberly accept their fates, trying to hide their delight that they had tricked him into giving them what they’d wanted anyway. Looking back, Robb remembered how Ned’s eyes would crinkle when he passed the sentence and doubted that they’d ever tricked him once.

That all seemed so long ago. Robb blinked and came back to the present. There wasn’t any point in thinking about what his father might have done, because Robb wouldn’t have dreamed of being so disrespectful to his father, because Robb had loved his father. And although he had been so bored and antsy back then when he was alone for those hours in the quiet old grove, he would have very much liked to go to the godswood for the rage in him now.

But the rage was confusing too, because really, he’d expected this to be so much worse—being forced to serve a Lannister. Maybe part of him had wanted it to be worse, to justify his hatred and make it feel righteous. Because Tywin hadn’t killed any of his family, so it couldn’t feel righteous for that.

Was that part of why he was so angry? He wasn’t blind to the fact that he was causing most of his problems with Tywin himself, but he couldn’t quite grasp why he was doing it or how to stop. It would almost have been easier if he was being treated more unfairly, because then at least he wouldn’t be so confused. Tywin Lannister would have been the villain, and Robb Stark would have been the hero, just like in the war, and it would have been clear. And he would have had someone to blame for things, besides himself. And something to focus on, besides the past.

Godswood afternoons aside, Robb had always been a man of action. He wished he didn’t have so much time to think these days.

Since he wasn’t being particularly honorable lately anyway, maybe he should have just taken the fucking sword and been done with it.

Chapter 11: Revelations

Summary:

The game changes.

When he climbed up the stairs to the Tower of the Hand that evening, his guard knocked to announce him. “Robb Stark, my lord.”

“Let him in,” the reply came.

The guard opened the door and gestured for Robb to enter. He waited for the Hand’s nod of dismissal before closing it again and taking his post outside.

Robb stood by the door for a moment, then took a few tentative steps forward and stopped again in the middle of the rug, waiting for further instruction. Lord Tywin was sitting at his desk, reading through a stack of papers, and he hadn’t looked at Robb yet, even when he’d entered.

The minutes crawled past, and Robb seethed. Lannister had told him to come here, and now he was just going to ignore him? What was this—another round of the damn patience game?

It must have been. Tywin flipped the stack to another page, seeming totally absorbed in the contents. Robb stayed where he was, trying to distract himself by looking around the room.

“Lannister,” Robb said finally, when he had examined each scene depicted in each of the room’s tapestries multiple times and couldn’t take it anymore.

Tywin acted like he hadn’t even heard him.

Irritated, Robb stepped forward and tried again. “Lord Tywin.”

That time, the Hand looked over his current page. “Yes?”

Robb hadn’t actually come up with an idea of what to say next.

“Well?” Tywin asked, his eyes flickering between the page and Robb as if he were an unexpected guest who’d just intruded on more important business. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

It was a game, Robb realized, but a new kind. Tywin was going to pretend he had no idea why Robb was here and slowly lead him into confessing it himself and reflecting on what a poor idea it had been. So he decided to skip a few steps. “I threatened to chop your head off,” he reminded him.

“I do recall something of the kind.” The Hand seemed totally unfazed. “So?”

Robb wasn’t in the mood for this. “So do what you’re going to do,” he said. “Unless you made me come all the way up the stairs just to fucking stand here all night.”

Lord Tywin set the papers down. “Tell me, young wolf,” he said, regarding him shrewdly. “I’ve been wondering. Do you provoke me because you want to be beaten?”

The question caught Robb off guard. His frustration was suddenly replaced with uncertainty and he swallowed, not sure where Tywin was going with this. The game must be something different from what he’d thought, and he’d need more time to figure it out. “No, my lord.”

Lannister drummed his fingertips against the desk, slow and rhythmic. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I do make a point of teaching my squires not to lie to me. To others, yes, on occasion, because it’s a valuable skill, but not to me. I suppose I assumed the trait would come built into a Stark.”

“I’m not lying,” Robb insisted hotly.

“Then perhaps you aren’t even aware of it yourself,” Tywin suggested. “But I don’t usually have to repeat the same lesson this frequently with any young man in my custody, and there have been a fair number of them over the years. At first I expected that you would test me to find the boundaries and wear yourself out quickly enough, as that is often the way of boys. You did that, or so it seemed, and there were even a few times I thought you might have finished. And yet…” He spread his hands out as if to say here we are. “What am I left to conclude?”

“That I haven’t found the boundaries yet,” Robb muttered, hating that Tywin had been attempting to analyze him like this and hating it even more that he was telling him about it.

“That is the other possibility, but it’s not flattering to your intellect,” Tywin said. “They aren’t complicated and I think you have found them very well. I suppose it could be my own ego speaking, but I find it difficult to accept that I’ve lost battles to a boy who learns so slowly. So I think it's something else.”

That much was true: Robb wasn’t a slow learner. But it didn’t change the fact that Tywin had come to the wrong conclusion. It made him furious and hateful when Lannister treated him like that, it was absurd to suggest it was something he wanted. “I’m not sure what you’re implying, Lord Tywin, but—”

Tywin held up his hand to stop him. “I’m not accusing you of something untoward, mind you. At least, it isn’t my suspicion that you like pain in the way that another sort of man might seek out at a brothel. I have an entirely different theory now. Would you like to hear it? I don’t intend to be mysterious.”

“What I’d like is for you to stop playing games with me,” Robb snapped.

“I am not the one who is playing a game,” Tywin said, very patiently, “but I’m willing to believe that you don’t know you are, so will you listen to my theory or not?”

Reluctantly, Robb lifted his shoulders. “You want to tell me, so tell me.”

Lannister folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward a bit. “The sense I get is that you’ve been trying to make yourself suffer, not because you enjoy it, but because you sincerely believe that you deserve to.” He paused, then added, “If I’m mistaken and you are just slow in the head after all, you may correct me and I won’t be offended, but take a moment to think before you answer.”

Robb fell silent. For all the thinking he’d been doing, he’d never spelled it out quite like that before. “I…” he started, then trailed off, lost in his head. Thinking about how he’d baited Tywin that day with Garrick—that time had been deliberate and he’d known it. But the week he’d been passively challenging him with the poorly groomed horses, he’d told himself it was just because he was tired. And he simply didn’t give his brain a chance to consult with his mouth every time he spoke to the man in ways he’d never spoken to anyone in his life, again and again despite the predictable results. The completely predictable results, because the boundaries were indeed not complicated, and he knew them whether or not he gave himself time to think about them.

He could see why Tywin had narrowed down the options—either he was stupid, or on some level this was intentional. Obviously Lannister had settled on the latter, thereby giving rise to the next question, which Robb had never even posed to himself: if it’s intentional, why?

“You what?” Like usual, Tywin’s tone had the edge of a demand to it, but for once Robb didn’t get the sense that he meant to be harsh. It was more like he’d been pondering this as a philosophical issue and was curious to hear if his logic had been sound.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Maybe you’re right. Although if it’s about what I deserve, I should probably be dead.” Some nights, in his head, he did die next to Grey Wind like he’d originally thought he was going to, and then he would lie awake and wonder why he hadn’t. And then he would watch the sunrise and pet his favorite horse and match wits against Jeryd and be glad he hadn’t. And then he would go to bed again and stare at the ceiling and feel ashamed that he was glad.

Tywin’s expression didn’t change. “Why?”

“Because of all the mistakes I made.”

“I see.” Lord Lannister sat back. “That is much as I thought. Instead of learning the intended lessons from these encounters, you’ve been using them to punish yourself for your other failures. I don’t imagine that failure is an experience you’ve been acquainted with very well in your short life.”

He had been doing that, hadn’t he? That was why he felt so compelled to say or do things he knew Tywin would react to and all but dare him to do something about it. Why those impulses were stronger when his guilt was worse. Why he always used the pain to think about the things he’d done wrong and the trail of death and hurt in his wake. Why sometimes he felt like he hated Tywin more for not doing something worse to him when he was trying to push him further. But also why he always felt like his conscience was a little clearer and he could rest a little easier after his penance.

He thought back to the months of travel with the Lannister army and realized in one form or another he’d been doing it the entire time. When he’d tried to threaten Tywin into killing him. Every time he’d performed badly with one of his games. And then even with the way he’d started to feel like he belonged in his cage and missed it when he’d been given more comfortable lodgings. Which must be why he slept better on the floor.

Tywin looked like he expected an answer, so Robb didn’t deny it. “I gained its acquaintance very rapidly,” he said. “And I would think that you of all people would agree that failure should be punished, my lord.”

“It isn’t that I disagree on a broad level, but your perspective is the unusual thing,” the Hand said. “Most men have a certain hypocrisy around the matter. They’ll gloat to see another man flogged or hung or separated from his left hand for something he’s done, but rarely accept being judged by the standards they hold for others.”

He still sounded as if this was all some sort of highly interesting scholarly exercise. Robb felt like he was attending a visiting maester’s academic lecture, only the subject of the dissertation was himself.

“You, on the other hand…” Tywin continued, so Robb waited to hear what other hand he was on. “I think you have fallen short of your standards, so you’ve condemned yourself as a guilty man, and in your mind things aren’t correct unless you suffer like one. Or die like one, if you’ve circled back around to trying to make me kill you.” His fingers tapped the desk again. “But if that was really what you wanted then I think you would have tried to take the sword today.”

It dawned on Robb that the sword had been a question. Two questions, actually. It had asked: do you really want to kill me? It had asked: do you really want to die?

“Maybe I don’t want to die, but it’s not about what I want,” Robb said with conviction. “If I can’t meet my own standards or be accountable for my actions, I haven’t earned the right to expect the same from anyone else. Or the right to have an easy life when I’m…the reason that…” He stopped. He didn’t want to speak about this to Tywin. Or to anyone. But especially Tywin. A man who didn’t believe in regret couldn’t possibly understand how he felt. The reason that so many people are dead and so many lives are ruined.

Tywin looked at him thoughtfully, and Robb knew he’d heard the end of the sentence anyway. “You Starks really are simple creatures, aren’t you?” Seeing Robb’s face tighten, he added, “Don’t be offended, I don’t mean it as an insult. I actually find it fascinating that people like you exist. I thought the same of your father.”

“I’m not like my father,” Robb said. He’d always tried to be, but he had never felt like he could live up to the man himself, before he’d died, or the image in his head, after.

“You are,” Tywin told him, as if there were no possible arguments to be made to the contrary, and to his great shame, Robb suddenly felt like he wanted to cry.

Instead, he said, “Fuck yourself, Lannister. Don’t pretend you know me.”

The measured look went right through him, stripping him down to blood and bone. “All right,” Tywin said finally, and got up. “Then it makes no difference to me what happens inside your head, and as usual, this is just for the disrespect.”

Robb didn’t try to resist the hand that gripped his shoulder and forced him over the desk. He wanted the fire to burn in him, like it had always burned so reliably before, so he could lose himself in the red heat of his hate and anger when his trousers were dragged down and the leather belt was lighting him up. But he waited for the fire, and it didn’t start, and he looked for it, and he couldn’t find it.

It made a few other things click into place, though.

That he wanted to hate Tywin so badly—so he wouldn’t have to hate himself.

And that he wanted to be angry, at Tywin or himself or the world or anything—because anger was so, so, so much easier than grief.

If anger was a bright hot fire, grief was a cold black ocean. Robb could feel himself falling in it now, among the dead who filled its depths, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he knew how to swim there.

He pressed his fists against the smooth polished surface of the desk, and his forehead against his fists, and clung to the pain like a piece of driftwood keeping him afloat in the stormy sea, or maybe like an anchor, keeping him tethered to himself in the waves. And he was surprised and thankful when Lord Tywin was charitable enough to act like he didn’t even notice when, for the second time since he’d lost the war, Robb’s tears silently started to fall.

Chapter 12: Fire and Water

Things were a bit different between them after that. For the past few months, Robb had been operating under the assumption that Tywin treated him this way, at best, to train and control him, or at worst to hurt and humiliate him. And while any of those things could still also be true, the thought had never crossed his mind before that the man might, for whatever reason, actually want to help him too. It didn’t seem like an idea that could be true.

But whether or not he actually understood the profound shame he felt from his failures, Tywin had been oddly perceptive about Robb’s deep belief that he had to suffer his way through it. That he couldn’t endure all the guilt and sorrow without the pain. Maybe he had been able to tell, by the dark circles that would start appearing under Robb’s eyes and the tension that always crept into his posture, how much worse things got in his head when the rest of his life had been too calm for too long.

It was strange to think that Tywin had been more aware of his motives than Robb had been himself. He supposed that as Hand of the King for over twenty years, and a lord and war commander for longer, the man had been reading people for a long time. And probably using what he saw against them more often than not, although Robb didn’t even get the sense that he was doing that right now.

Since he had a better grasp on what was happening inside him after that conversation, Robb thought that maybe it would make it stop happening. But of course, his peace refused to be won quite so easily. Perhaps one day, once he’d atoned enough, he might arrive at a place where the past didn’t torment him so much, but that day hadn’t come yet. Right now, the only way out for him was through.

While things were different, they also weren’t as different as Robb had expected. They didn’t speak about it quite so directly again. When Robb made a mistake in his work, he faced the usual consequences for the incompetence, and it always seemed to reset him in a way. But as he continued adjusting to his new duties and expectations, the mistakes grew fewer and further between, and he noticed that his mind became louder and angrier every time it had been too long.

He could always feel it immediately: the thoughts creeping back, the nights getting worse. And the visions had become a little different sometimes. He wasn’t only picturing the dead when he closed his eyes. Now, he often saw himself in places he hadn’t been, doing things he hadn’t done, to people who weren’t dead—at least not at the beginning.

One night he was in front of the Great Sept of Baelor, in the crowd while his father confessed to treason. It hadn’t been Eddard Stark’s blood flowing over the stones at the end of that scene, but Ilyn Payne’s, then Joffrey’s, both spilling within a single spin of Robb’s swift, sure blade.

He was with Sansa in the throne room, then, after his victory at Oxcross. Any member of the Kingsguard who tried to raise his hand to her in retribution hadn’t kept that hand for long. And of course, men who had enough dishonor in them to attack an innocent, defenseless girl didn’t deserve to continue drawing breath, so Robb had rapidly solved that issue as well.

Another night, he’d arrived to Winterfell in time to save his brothers. With anguish and confusion he’d told Theon that he had trusted him, damn him, and he had been his brother too, hadn’t he? Greyjoy’s only response was to spit in his face. Robb’s eyes had shot open, then, because he knew what he would see next. And sure enough, when his heavy eyelids succumbed to their own weight again, the image waiting behind them was a silver flash of steel and Theon’s head hitting the ground.

Then, the battlefield. The last battle. It was raging on around him when he’d seen Tywin ride into the fray. Grey Wind had knocked him from his warhorse with a mighty leap, and then Robb had faced him on the ground. A circle of Stark and Lannister soldiers had formed around them for their duel. Tywin had put up a good fight in Robb’s head, but when the sword finally pierced his heart in the end, it meant he’d won the war and the North was free.

Until Robb opened his eyes, anyway, in his little locked room, no freer than the North.

Instead of how it had been before—lying awake the rest of the night thinking about all the things that had happened—he lay awake thinking about all the things that hadn’t. And even if they were things he knew he couldn’t have done, events he couldn’t realistically have prevented, like his father’s death…it didn’t stop his mind from playing the scenes, and it didn’t stop him from getting up in the morning wanting to fight, to instigate, to get himself knocked around about it. Or—needing to, since that was actually what it felt like, and since nothing else made it stop.

Sometimes, after nights like that, he would bait some other knight’s stable squire into a brawl in the yard—he never threw the first punch but they were easy to rile up, his guards liked to watch, and Tywin didn’t seem to care as long as it wasn’t division in his own ranks—and feel satisfied once they’d beaten each other into the dirt.

More often, he held to tradition and mouthed off to Lord Lannister himself, and the man wouldn’t say anything much about it, but would only look a bit humored by what Robb now recognized was the sheer novelty of any living human daring to speak to him that way. And then he would also hold to tradition and order Robb into a private room on the spot (if there had been witnesses), or up to the Tower at the day’s end (if there hadn’t), where he’d obligingly thrash him soundly enough that his head was quiet for a while.

Afterward, as always, Robb never apologized for whatever he’d said or done, and Tywin never offered forgiveness, and even if he pretended to take offense he never actually did, now that he knew it was a game. Robb thought the Hand actually sort of enjoyed seeing what kind of insult or backtalk he’d come up with next. At least the game was fun for one of them.

As rapidly as a reflex, he went back to letting himself be angry while it was happening, whether he was absorbing the cleansing thud of fists in the yard or the sharp sting of a belt in the Tower. Robb hated that he had shed tears in front of a Lannister at all, even if Jeryd had been wrong and Lord Tywin hadn’t wanted to drink them, and had no plans to do that again.

But now that the dam was open, the grief would flood into him later, when he was alone in his room, and he sure as fuck shed them then. After the throne room he had cried for his own pride, but he didn't think that was worth the water anymore.  Now, he grieved for the people who were dead and for the ones who had to live without them. For his sad memories and sometimes for his happy ones. For all the pasts he couldn’t change and for all the futures that wouldn’t exist. It was amazing how quickly tears could replenish themselves, even Stark tears: Robb had simply never tested it before now.

The sheer volatility of those days made him feel a little bit insane. Like he was being consumed by darkness and then lighting himself on fire and then dousing himself in the sea. But in the night Robb would somehow swim his way to the shores of his sadness, crawl up onto the saltwater-soaked sand, and fall asleep, sore and bedraggled and exhausted. The morning after, he’d feel so much better and things would snap back to normal, and he always nurtured a hope that maybe this time the peace would last. Sometimes the respite would be long enough to make him think so. Until another night would fall and he would close his eyes to meet the dead or to kill the living or, much more rarely now, to die himself.

Whenever Robb was dealt with in the stables, the Hand would always just dismiss him right away. But perhaps his biggest surprise was that during evenings in the Tower, Lord Tywin usually kept him there longer just to talk to him. He didn’t coddle him or treat him like there was anything wrong with him, and he didn’t try to interview him any further about his mental state, thank fuck for that. Robb would sooner put his head under one of the horses’ hooves and pray for a swift trampling before he’d talk to a Lannister about his feelings, any more than he already had at least. And he didn't know how well it would go over to say, "By the way, I imagined killing you last night." It was better not to be asked.

Instead, Tywin would have him drag a chair over to the other side of the desk, then run him through various military scenarios, usually real but stripped of their historical details, and ask—in a manner not unlike interrogation—how Robb would have handled them. Once he was satisfied with those answers, he’d explain who had been fighting who, what strategies they’d actually used, and how it had ended. Then they would dissect the various inefficiencies of the victor’s plan and analyze potential methods the loser could have used to win.

So Robb preferred the evenings in the Tower, because he was good at that and it made him feel a little more normal on the days when nothing else did at all.

Chapter 13: Morning Run

All the stable squires were being fucking cowards today, Robb thought, turning away from the third one who had failed to rise to his challenge. He had spent all night missing Grey Wind, and missing his dreams of being a wolf—he’d wondered in his least stable moments if they hadn’t even been dreams at all, they’d felt so real—and it was his fault Grey Wind was dead. So while he’d already gotten himself an evening summons upstairs by saying something he couldn’t even remember at this point, he wasn’t feeling patient enough to let the whole day pass. He was angry and frustrated and ashamed and wanted to fight now.

But how could he do that when everyone was being a fucking coward?

“On to the next one?” his guard asked. “Is there anyone else here?”

Robb looked at him, very slowly.

“Don’t even think about it, Stark,” the guard said. “I’m not stupid enough to take your bait either.”

“Good thing you don’t have a choice, then,” Robb said, and he ran.

The guard muttered a string of curses and gave chase. Robb vaulted over the stableyard fence, enjoying how fast and agile he felt, a bit like those old wolf dreams in fact, and darted over to a stone archway in the outer courtyard’s wall. Through it, a set of steps wound down to a romantic-looking flower-drenched terrace with a beautiful view of the sea, so Robb ran down them, made it to the terrace, and had nowhere else to go by the time the guard caught up and tackled him, scraping his cheek against the rough stone as he attempted to pin him down. A second one had joined the pursuit, attracted by the commotion, and was nearly down the stairs too.

Robb struggled and managed to get himself flipped around onto his back, only to catch a fist to the face that made his nose bleed. For Grey Wind. He returned a blow of his own to the guard’s jaw. For Grey Wind. The other guard arrived with a kick to his side for Grey Wind, and Robb put up a pretty decent fight for Grey Wind until the fire had been satisfyingly battered right out of him and they were able to haul him to his feet. Glancing out at the sky and the sea, which stretched to the horizon in gradients of blue and green, then down at the brightly flowering vines tracing the cracks in the old stone wall raised waist-high around the terrace, he thought it was probably the prettiest spot he’d ever had the absolute shit beaten out of him in.

He half-walked and was half-dragged back up the winding stone stairs. Instead of being deposited back at the stables to finish his work, he was brought back up the servants’ staircase he always took down from his room. And instead of being locked in his room, he was pushed up the stairs to the top of the Tower. By the time they got there, Robb was so damn sick of stairs.

Lord Lannister opened the door himself when the guards knocked. He didn’t seem particularly surprised by Robb’s condition and only glanced at him briefly before addressing his escorts, whose mutual dishevelment did raise his eyebrows. “I take it there’s an issue?”

Robb was roughly shoved inside and then calmly but firmly directed to wait by the desk while they stepped aside and talked in low tones for a few minutes.

When he heard the door click shut, he turned around to see Tywin already wrapping the belt around his hand.

Gesturing to his scraped-up face and bloody nose, Robb said, “They already took care of it.”

“Oh, so you don’t want to do this today?” The Hand’s tone and expression were equally inscrutable, but the one obvious thing was that there wasn’t a trace of amusement in either.

Robb almost said: No, I don’t want to fucking do this today, I don’t want to fucking do this at all, I just have to so I can fucking sleep at night. But he was in a more suitable frame of mind to resist his impulses right now, so he made a few tweaks and abridged it to: “No, sir.”

“Good,” Tywin said. “Then maybe this will actually be an effective punishment for once. I thought I’d need to come up with something better afterward to get the message to sink in, but I suppose that’s a bridge to cross at that point. Because one way or another, you’re not going to do that to your guards again. Turn around and bend over.”

Jaw flexing stubbornly, Robb stared at him and didn’t move.

“I recommend you don't become accustomed to thinking you get to make decisions here, Your Grace,” Tywin said, and turned back to the door. “It’s no trouble to provide evidence to the contrary.”

Before he could press the handle down, Robb asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m sure your escorts wouldn’t mind helping you figure out how to comply, since you appear to be struggling,” Lord Tywin explained.

Shit, Robb thought. Even before the game had been a game, he had always vaguely appreciated Tywin’s apparent mindfulness for privacy: he didn’t seem to want to humiliate him or cause a scene with an audience, and never even kept the guards in the room to ensure his own safety. But since Robb wasn’t cooperating and the guards had been rather directly involved in this situation, he supposed it would be a logical exception. “I… Fuck. Wait.”

“Language,” Tywin said, but he let go of the door handle. “Presumably you’ve gained a sudden interest in doing as you’re told?”

Robb dug his fingernails into his palm, used the red part of his sleeve to wipe away the blood on his face, and looked down. “Yes, sir.”

The Hand didn’t come back toward him yet. “Don’t just tell me so, boy. I’m personally more inclined to believe actions. Do not make me repeat myself.”

So Robb turned and got ready, untying his trousers to bare himself for the second and much more literal arse-beating of the morning. Hearing footsteps, he tensed his forearms against the desk and braced himself, suspecting that he was about to have a difficult time, since his anger had already drained away and his head was clear enough that he didn’t think he’d be swept back into its blinding fog. And, well, he kind of needed the fog for this, because when he was in the fog, pain was almost like a welcome ray of light breaking through it, dissipating the disorienting red haze of rage and regret, leaving him lucid enough to think and feel other things again in the aftermath. Without any mists to diffuse it, that light would only scorch him like the hot southern sun.

Maybe he was understanding himself a bit better these days, because his prediction was right. Even though he really should be used to it by now, he was already wincing from the first lash. Without any sort of mental buffer to distract him or blunt the pain, he could only focus on the way it felt: the fierce initial sting that deepened into a radiating burn, with barely any time to absorb either before the belt cracked down again. And he could never predict where it would fall next: the center of his bottom, middle of the thigh, twice in a row on the line dividing his backside and legs.

Robb inhaled and exhaled sharp and hard, stayed still because he didn’t want the guards to come assist him with that, and wondered if it hurt like this every time and he was only feeling it more clearly right now. It was probably also just harder today, though, because Lannister had made it clear enough after his night of freedom in the forest that he didn’t like it when Robb ran.

He also couldn’t predict when it would be over until Tywin said, “Get dressed.”

So Robb did, and turned back around, keeping his eyes lowered, aching everywhere, feeling decidedly reminded of his place and put back in it. Although it really hadn’t been as bad as after the forest, because he hadn’t really run. He’d probably only feel the welts for a few days, instead of bruises for a week.

“I’d imagine it would be very inconvenient for you to have to hobble around the stables in shackles, wouldn’t it?” Tywin asked.

Robb nodded silently.

With the hand that wasn’t still holding the belt like an active threat, Lord Tywin gripped him hard by the chin and raised it up, forcing Robb to look at him. “Do I have to do that to you from now on?”

“No, my lord,” Robb said.

“You can be trusted not to repeat this incident?”

Tywin’s fingers were pressing painfully into his jawline. If there had been any fight left in Robb right now, he would have had to resist the impulse to bat his hand away, but at this point his stores of it were utterly spent, so the impulse didn’t come in the first place. “Yes, sir.”

Tywin didn’t release him yet. “You don’t fight the guards and you don’t run from them. I don’t care if it was a real attempt or just part of the game. You can play it with me, but not with them. It simply isn't a precedent I will allow you to set. Is the matter clear enough to you?”

Robb nodded again, as best he could against the vise-like grip.

“Verbally,” Tywin said, studying his face.

“I won’t do it again, my lord,” Robb promised. Tywin had probably made him say it because now if he did do it, he’d be a liar. And as far as Robb could tell, Lord Tywin had never lied to him, so even if he’d been generally willing to set his own values aside to accommodate the situation, he didn’t much like the idea of being the more dishonest one between a Stark and a Lannister.

He had interpreted it correctly, because Lannister-green eyes locked onto Tully-blue ones and the next thing Tywin said was, “Your word means something to you.”

It hadn’t exactly been a question, but Robb answered, “It does.” His word meant something, period. Not just to him.

Finally, the hand dropped. “All right,” Lord Tywin said. “Then that’s all.”

“Should I…” Robb looked at the door, wondering if maybe he’d make him sit and talk about another historical battle before he was dismissed. “I don’t have to stay this time, right?”

“Not today,” Tywin said. It made sense; he was a busy man, hadn’t accounted for this disruption in his schedule, and probably didn’t want to make Robb feel rewarded in any small way for violating the unspoken rules of the arrangement. But Robb felt a little better, and a little less like he had fucked everything up, when he added, “Next time.”

When he was sent back out, Robb apologized to the guards, and they looked confused—because it had been two against one, he was in much worse shape than them, and they probably didn’t often receive apologies from people they had recently beaten up—but one of them handed him a handkerchief when blood started trickling from his nose again on the journey down the stairs. He was accompanied all the way back to the stables, because there was still work to do, and, well, there was no reason he’d expect to get the rest of the day off when he had done this to himself, so he wasn’t mad about it.

That night he shed his tears for Grey Wind and slept as deeply as the dead.

Chapter 14: Battle Tactics

Things were easier for everyone when Robb played by the rules, so he made more of an effort to practice self-control and patience even when things were difficult for him, and the routine settled back to normal again. He fought the other squires less often, too, although that might have been less his choice than theirs.

As promised, the military strategy sessions resumed on the next evening in the Tower. Not uncommonly, Robb would recognize exactly what battle Tywin was describing, even with the specifics kept vague, and the Hand would nod and look mildly approving when he got it right.

One night, Tywin had barely begun speaking when Robb knew it.

“A strike force of three thousand launches an ambush on an army regiment eight thousand strong crossing through a mountain forest,” Tywin said, observing his squire astutely.

Robb’s heartbeat sped up and he shifted in his seat, trying not to flinch at the reawakened burn from the thrashing he’d just received for making the very reasonable suggestion earlier that Tywin clean his own horse’s stall today because Robb had had enough of Lannister horseshit. Lord Tywin had replied that he would see him upstairs later to explain how much he’d liked the joke, but in the end there really hadn’t been much explaining involved. “You’re referring to Hornvale, my lord?”

The nod. “I am. The opponents?”

Drawing in a long, slow breath, Robb made eye contact and answered, “King Robb Stark and Lord Tywin Lannister.”

Tywin looked decidedly less approving. “Boy, if you—”

“I was king then,” Robb broke in. “I didn’t say I was king now.”

“Very well,” the older man allowed. “But do tread carefully. Any unnecessary remarks out of you and we can start the evening over from the beginning, understand?” After the day with the guards a few weeks ago, he had apparently noted it as very useful information that Robb never wanted to incite conflict twice in a row, thereby making him much easier to threaten. And Tywin Lannister threatened as easily as he breathed.

“Yes, sir,” Robb said begrudgingly, definitely not wanting to give Tywin any reasons to follow through. He’d already not been easy on him earlier. Robb had been silently berating himself over the obvious flaws in his last battle strategy, but had decided midway through that he was fucking tired of this and, in fact, of everything, and tried to get up, assuming Tywin wouldn’t care since he probably wasn’t in real trouble for the horseshit comment. He had then been informed in no uncertain terms that as far as Tywin could recall, Robb still hadn’t been authorized to make his own decisions—but that whenever he’d actually had enough and wanted to stop playing his little game, Tywin was certain he knew perfectly well how to behave.

The point was admittedly fair, so Robb had muttered a few curses and yielded when he was told to get back down and stay down. His moment of resistance only earned him an even sterner whipping in the second half, and he’d white-knuckled his way to the end, wondering why in all seven hells this was something that calmed him down.

It had, though. As tangled-up and chaotic as he’d felt before, the fog had dispersed and he was clear and focused by the time he was told to fetch his usual chair. His usual hard fucking wooden chair, because Tywin apparently had an almost pathological dislike of comfortable things, for himself or anyone else, and there were no furnishings in that category to be found here. Robb wouldn’t be surprised to learn he slept on a slab of stone in the Hand’s quarters, with a wooden plank for a blanket. (But then, Robb was still sleeping on the floor most nights, so he supposed he wasn’t one to criticize.)

Lord Lannister moved on. “Why was numerical superiority not relevant in this encounter?”

“Your forces were divided,” Robb said. “They were spread too thin and unfavorably for the terrain, which made them less able to coordinate and mount a cohesive defense, even against a much smaller army.”

“Correct. And why would they have been positioned in such an ineffective manner?”

“I assume because you were prioritizing speed, did not anticipate the attack, and saw no need to consolidate your troops or take the road through the forest more cautiously.”

Tywin nodded. “Any guesses on why I failed to anticipate it?”

“Poor intelligence,” Robb said, then quickly clarified, “I mean reconnaissance by that, my lord, not your intelligence, before you get riled up about it.”

“Also my intelligence, to a certain degree,” Tywin acknowledged, remaining perfectly un-riled. “But given your dubious levels of restraint with your phrasing, it’s probably better for me to say that part. As I see it, the root of it all is that I underestimated you, and I should have known better as early as the battle on the Green Fork.”

“I had good advisors.” Robb liked to give credit where it was due.

“And a good mind for tactics,” Lannister said. “Your advisors aren’t with you here and you hold your own quite well in these exercises. Don’t be too humble, it suits you no better than the overinflated hubris I met you with.”

Lord Tywin had a real gift for making compliments sound like insults. Robb wanted to roll his eyes but decided that now wasn’t the time.

“Continue,” Tywin prompted. “Reconnaissance?”

“You relied too much on messenger ravens from your generals, but I had a lot of archers watching the skies,” Robb said. “Had you deemed me more of a threat at that point, I imagine you would have used more scouts and spies to actively gather information on my movements and may have learned about the ambush in advance.”

Tywin agreed. “I should have recognized that once you had split off with a smaller, more mobile army, you’d rely on ambushes to strike quickly and unpredictably. It would have been sensible to devote more resources toward nailing down the when and where.”

“And that’s exactly why your ravens were actually more useful to me,” Robb said. “I pieced together your plan to take the mountain route to preserve the secrecy of your movements, because you expected me to march on Casterly Rock after I was through the Golden Tooth. You wanted to cut me off and swarm in from the rear when we tried to lay siege to the fortress.”

“Attacking Casterly Rock would have been a fool’s errand either way,” Tywin said. “The location is quite well-fortified and it has never fallen. You'd only have been another in a long line of hopeful idiots who have bashed their heads in against that rock. But the idea of capturing your opponent’s castle is appealing in such a simplistic way that it made perfect sense when I thought you a fool.”

“I was never interested in your castle,” Robb said. “But I was very interested in beating you to Hornvale.”

“And that you did,” Tywin said. “Moving on, what else could I have done to improve my chances of a better outcome?”

“Deployed your forces in different formations by default, even if you didn’t expect an attack,” Robb suggested. “Used some of your cavalry to scout ahead at all times. Split up the others more evenly to protect your flanks with flexible and responsive fighting units so it would be harder to exploit gaps in your line.”

“Since they were only at the vanguard and the rear, it made the center infantry particularly vulnerable, and you made good use of that exposure. The van didn’t even realize there was an attack until well after it had begun.” Lannister paused briefly. “You probably know the next question already. Once the battle had started, what would you have done in my place?”

Robb had expected it, but he still had to think about it. “I have the benefit of hindsight, but I hope that instead of standing my ground to engage the enemy, I would have ordered a strategic withdrawal before the lines of communication broke down,” he answered. “Then repositioned my forces in the valley, since the more open terrain there would have favored a larger army. Either lured the opponent out behind me and outflanked them, or preserved more strength for future battles if they didn’t follow, which, for the record, I wouldn't have. You still would have suffered some casualties in the retreat if you’d done that, but nothing like…like what happened.” Tywin had lost over three thousand men that day, to Robb’s six hundred. (Six hundred and twenty-seven, specifically: Robb never rounded down when it came to people’s lives.)

Lord Tywin sat back and tapped his fingers on his desk. “This is why I said it would be a waste to kill you.”

“It’s a waste to have me shoveling horseshit, too,” Robb said, taking the risk because sometimes it felt good to say things like that just to say them, even if he wasn’t trying to trigger a response.

“It certainly is,” Tywin replied, with the hint of humor in his eyes again. “But shovel it you will. In fact, tell the other knights’ squires that you’ll do all the stalls in your stable tomorrow, and don’t think I won’t verify it with your guard of the day.”

Fuck, Robb thought, but he had a strong sense that if he pushed it any further, he’d be shoveling all the stalls with a limp. “Understood, my lord,” he replied without enthusiasm.

“That said, perhaps in the interests of being less wasteful, we could do one more exercise today,” Lord Tywin suggested. He reached into a drawer, pulled out a map, and spread it out on the desk. “Stannis Baratheon’s fleet seems to be making the final preparations to set sail from Dragonstone,” he said, pointing, “and Renly’s former cavalry from the Stormlands have joined his forces for what will almost certainly be a simultaneous land attack. With our current strategy and the Tyrell alliance, I have little doubt as to the security of our victory. But I can’t help but feel like there are opportunities to streamline it.”

“You can go over it with me, Lord Tywin,” Robb told him, “but I don’t think I’ll be much help.”

“And why is that?” Judging by Lannister’s eyes, half-lidded and dim, he was prepared to be unimpressed with Robb’s answer before he’d even given it.

“Because,” Robb explained anyway, with a friendly smile. “I want Lord Stannis to win.”

Tywin folded his map back up. “Then you should have just given me bad advice.”

As if they didn’t both know he would have seen right through a ruse like that. “Command your infantry to swim out into the Blackwater and board Stannis’s ships there,” Robb deadpanned. “Fully armored, of course, to shield them from his arrows.”

“Naturally,” Tywin returned dryly. “I should have thought of it myself.”

 

Later that night, in his room, Robb was too busy thinking to cry about anything, and he was actually rather comfortable in his bed by the time he fell asleep mid-thought, wondering what the attack would be like and whether Tywin’s confidence was justified.

Before the week was out, he got his answer while he watched through his small, barred window as the Battle of the Blackwater began. He had never seen anything like the unnatural green flames of the wildfire surging across the sea, warping and splintering the hulls of the ships, igniting the sails and rigging and men aboard, turning the once-proud fleet into floating pyres in the bay.

Not caring to witness the eerie scene for very long, Robb turned away from the window, wishing that Lord Tywin had taken his advice and it was Lannister soldiers and goldcloaks sinking there in the brackish water, filling their lungs with it as their armor dragged them down. He didn’t know what kind of ruler Stannis would have been, but he knew his father had supported Robert’s brother’s claim to the throne, and a rightful claim was a rightful claim.

He wasn’t needed in the stables for a few days before and after, because the horses had been tapped for the cavalry defense effort. The next time he was brought down, the beasts were a little fewer, a lot dirtier, exhausted by their travels and battles, and bearing some injuries. Robb cared for them gently and thoroughly alongside the master of horse, staying late into the night despite his guard’s protests that he was supposed to have been off duty hours ago. When Robb told him that he was welcome to report him to Lord Tywin for working too hard, if he would like, the guard sat on a dusty stool with a half-defeated, half-baleful expression. Since Robb had won, he stayed just as long the next several nights, and the stablemaster seemed glad for the help.

A few times that week, Robb caught himself staring at the empty stalls and missing the horses that hadn’t come back. Maybe they would have, if he had helped Tywin with the land strategy. Or maybe not.

Other than that, in his small corner of the world, nothing changed. Except that they spent some more evenings analyzing a few of the other battles Tywin had lost. And that Robb’s memories and visions were starting to come a little less often when he closed his eyes. But sometimes, when they did, the scenes that played in his head were wreathed with the sickly green glow of the fire on the sea.

Notes:

(Hornvale is a canon location but not a canon battle, for any ASOIAF history buffs wondering why “Battle of Hornvale” isn’t getting any search results.)

Chapter 15: A Toast for the Dead

Four months after he’d been kicked in the throne room and two nights after King Joffrey had very ingloriously died at his own wedding, Robb was alone in his room. One of the guards had brought him back like usual after he’d completed his duties in the stables, where he’d gotten to overhear all the gory details being bandied about by the squires and stablehands. He’d done his best to disguise his joy, listening only with grim satisfaction to hear how purple the young king’s face had gone as he’d struggled for a breath he never got. Now, he lay back in his bed, lacing his hands behind his head and grinning at the ceiling as he pictured it.

There was a knock at the door, followed by the sound of a key in the lock. Robb sat up, surprised when the door opened to a serving girl: how had she gotten a key?

That question was answered once she spoke, blushing a little. It was an effect Robb had once been accustomed to having on young women, though there were precious few of them in his vicinity now. “Lord Tywin sent for you, up in the Tower.”

It made Robb a bit uneasy. He hadn’t seen Tywin on either morning since Joffrey’s death and wasn’t sure, in fact, if anyone had. Plus, he hadn’t even done anything to invite additional attention recently, since he hadn’t felt the crushing black sleepless weight of guilt—or the accompanying urge to suffer for it or stir up a fight over it—in nearly two weeks now, which was the longest break his mind had ever seen fit to give him. There was something about being made to describe, in precise detail, how you had won a battle, to the seasoned war commander you had won it against, that felt even more cathartic than crying, and the effects lasted longer. Those nights invariably left him feeling like Tywin had hauled him up by the collar, given him a good hard head-clearing smack across the face, and said maybe you should remember who the fuck you are now. And Robb was starting to remember.

But he didn’t know why Tywin would do something like that, when he’d thought this was all to make him understand that he wasn’t a king or a leader anymore and to teach him his place as an obedient little servant, one who would bow and say things like of course, sir, I would love to help you plan that battle, sir, would you prefer the enemy scrambled or fried? And perhaps as a reward my lord might allow me to kiss his illustrious boots after I shine them, if I am fortunate enough to be deemed worthy of the honor. So maybe he was imagining it, or the effect was unintentional. Then again, Lord Tywin hadn't made him so much as look at a boot that wasn't his own, much less shine one, since the throne room. 

And as for tonight, Robb had never been summoned upstairs unless he’d done something to antagonize him, not since he’d first arrived to King’s Landing anyway. Maybe it meant things were about to change again—maybe Lannister wanted someone to lash out at after his grandson’s death and decided he’d been treating his prisoner too fairly. Or did he plan to accuse him of the murder, since everyone and the gods knew Robb had the motive, if not the opportunity? But the door would have opened to goldcloaks then, not this girl.

There was only one way to get the answers, so he slipped on his boots and followed her. He could hear the guards down the stairs somewhere, talking and probably drinking and playing one of the card games they liked—that explained why he wasn’t being collected by one of them, at least.

The servant locked his door again from the outside, which was a customary safety measure in case any Stark enemies (or friends) were watching him and had the thought to sneak inside and wait for his return; as far as Robb knew, there had been no attempts so far. Then they climbed the stairs together and she let him into the Hand’s solar, announced his presence to Tywin—who was standing by a window with his back turned—and left the spare key on the desk before quickly retreating. Robb’s eyes drifted to the key. It might not be a bad thing to have in his pocket, he thought.

But then Tywin turned around, although he wasn’t really looking at him, and he took a few steps to the armchair behind his desk. “Sit,” he commanded, and did the same himself.

So Robb dragged over the chair he always occupied on the other side, and waited, alert and wary.

When he remained silent, Tywin cast him a short glance. “You aren’t going to offer your sympathies for the untimely death of my cherished grandson?”

“No,” Robb said.

It earned him a snort that almost sounded like laughter. “Good. I think I would have sent you back downstairs.” He reached for a bottle of wine, and it was only then that Robb noticed the two empty ones on his side table already. “Find a cup, boy. You should be celebrating.”

Robb located a goblet and let the lord pour the wine, determined to sip it slowly. A drunk Tywin Lannister was a sight he didn’t think he had seen before; he should be keeping his wits about him.

“The king is dead,” Tywin said, raising his goblet.

“Long live the king,” Robb answered, lifting his own. He even meant it, he thought, probably. Tommen was no more a Baratheon than Joffrey had been, but from the little Robb knew, he seemed like a decent sort of boy all the same, and a decent king was almost as good as a rightful king.

They drank.

“Little cunt, wasn’t he?” Tywin asked suddenly.

Robb was careful. “Was he?”

“Yes,” Lannister confirmed. “Relax, Stark. This isn’t a trap. I merely wanted the company of someone who has the capacity to speak a single honest fucking word. And who isn’t going to save whatever I say to use against me or just fawn at me over it because they want political favors or my gold. I was fairly confident you wouldn’t already have plans for the evening.”

“I actually have a very busy social calendar,” Robb said, “and I want your gold too.” He felt a little more comfortable at the explanation, enough to slip into the rapport they sometimes shared these days.

Tywin regarded him with some amusement. “The men who actually want it don’t say it like that.”

“Maybe they should,” Robb suggested. “Did it work?”

Tapping his tunic pockets, Tywin slipped a hand inside one and brought it out with a golden coin, flicking it off his thumb at his squire. “You’re a more skillful negotiator than all the politicians in King’s Landing.”

Robb caught it and tucked it into his own pocket. “Never been paid for drinking before. In the North it’s the other way around.”

The Hand refilled his own cup and topped off Robb’s. “I’ve always said northerners are a backwards sort of people.”

“Yet you didn’t invite a southerner to drink with you tonight,” Robb pointed out.

“No,” Tywin agreed. “Better a wolf than a viper tonight.”

“Don’t know that a sane man would open his door to either one.”

“A sound point,” Lannister conceded. “But at least you would bite my face, not my ankle.”

Robb raised his eyebrows. “Don’t know that a sane man would prefer a bite to the face.”

“Then I suppose all I can do is hope that the wolf is only thirsty tonight, and not hungry,” Tywin remarked, aware as well as Robb was that this particular species of wolf did not bite unarmed men, no matter how much wine was in them and how few guards were outside the door.

“Should we observe the mourning period by sharing our favorite stories about Joffrey?” Robb asked, taking a longer sip and settling in. “I have so many.”

“Yes, but I believe I already know yours.” Lord Tywin drank and considered it. “Here, you might like this one. Did you hear he was supposed to lead the defense of the River Gate during the Blackwater attack, and instead he fled inside the keep to hide behind his mother’s skirts?”

Robb had heard that, yes, and he had laughed and laughed. Tonight, he only shrugged. “That’s fine. I might have done the same thing.”

Lannister sighed and lifted an open palm toward him. “Now the punchline, boy.”

It almost made Robb smile, that he already knew. “…When I was five.”

“Perhaps,” Tywin replied, maybe in jest and maybe not. “Even at five, I’d wager your blade would at least have been red before you ran. And there would have been a man hot on your heels with a hole in his calf.”

“In his knee, so he couldn’t chase me,” Robb corrected. “What kind of an amateur do you take me for?”

“No kind at all,” Tywin said. Robb was used to his bluntness now, but it still surprised him when it was leveraged in a positive fashion. “I wasted enough time doing that in the war, and I told you once that I learn from my mistakes too.”

He turned his head back to the window, then, and lapsed into silence, seeming in the same reflective mood as when Robb had first arrived.

When he hadn’t spoken for some time, Robb ventured a question. “You are thinking about Joffrey still, my lord?”

Tywin didn’t answer him right away, but eventually he turned his head back. His eyes only swept over Robb briefly before going distant again. “My father was a weak man. I was not born to be the son of a weak man. From the time I was a child, it was up to me to make myself and my house strong by any means necessary. And even if those means were cruel at times, I don’t think many men would deny that I’ve been effective in what I set out to do.” He took a long draught of his wine and grimaced as he swallowed. “Only to watch as my entire lineage, little that it is, inherited my father’s weakness after all.”

“It’s not so bad as all that,” Robb said helpfully. “Some of them inherited your cruelty too.”

It was the first time he had heard Tywin actually laugh—just a short burst of it, but a laugh nonetheless. “Precisely why I prefer the wolf. I didn’t think there was a single soul in the city who had the courage to tell it to me straight.”

Warm evening air swirled in through the open window, ruffling the banners on the walls. The air here was always warm, and Robb dearly missed feeling the crisp bite of a cold night, which all nights were in the North, even in summer. At least all the way up here in the Tower, the breeze didn’t have the stench that seemed to permeate the rest of King’s Landing: sweat and shit and flowers. Here, the wind came directly from the sea, with a fresh, sharp, salty tang Robb could almost taste when he breathed.

He looked at Tywin, who was watching the tapestries flutter with glazed indifference, and his mind wandered back to the lesson the lord had tried to teach him about regret. “The most useless emotion,” Lannister had called it, or something of the sort. Robb wondered if after two-and-a-half bottles of wine, he had forgotten his own advice.

Shaking himself out of the reverie again, Tywin rummaged in his pocket and slid another coin across the desk. “I am not good company at the moment, I fear.”

When Robb slid the gold back to him, Lannister looked as though he’d never seen someone do that in his life and wasn’t sure what to make of it. He stared at the coin, and then at him, for a long moment before raising his goblet again. “To Eddard Stark, damn the man.”

Robb joined the toast, but adapted it. “To my father. May he rest peacefully.”

They quaffed their cups, and Tywin found a fourth bottle.

The night outside grew darker and the wind stronger, and eventually Tywin stood up, not looking nearly as unsteady as Robb thought he should have been after the last glass had been poured. He scanned his desk with weary eyes, picked up the key, and handed it to Robb. “Go to bed.”

With his eyes fixed on Tywin’s face, Robb accepted the key rather tentatively, wondering if he knew what he was doing, giving this to him and sending him down alone.

But even as tired and inebriated as he must have been, Tywin didn’t miss the meaning of his look. “Be smart, boy,” he said. “The tower is full of guards, and so is the rest of the keep, and if any of them spot you, you’ll have a decision to make about the value of your word.”

“It’s fair game if they don’t notice me, though,” Robb pointed out. “Then I wouldn’t have to run or fight.”

“Yes, I never did button up that loophole,” Tywin agreed. “Well, if you pull it off despite the odds, I don’t know that my soldiers would appreciate having to waste their time hunting you down in the morning.” Then he shrugged. “Or perhaps they would enjoy it. I will leave that in your hands.”

Robb nodded. “Goodnight, Lord Tywin.”

He shut the door behind him and started the long climb down the stairs, feeling wine-warm and not completely steady himself. If not for that, he thought, letting himself back into his room, he might have tried.

Chapter 16: The Wolf and the Lion

When Sansa Stark was married to Tyrion Lannister shortly after the mourning period for Joffrey had ended, Lord Tywin did not tell Robb about it beforehand. There hadn’t even been a proper betrothal period first, in case word spread to any other unwanted ears prior to the union being made official, which was why Robb only found out on the evening of the wedding.

And now it was too late and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Tywin had never made him give back the spare key to his room, but there weren’t very many places to hide things in there, and the guards had confiscated it during a random sweep while he was working. He always knew when they had done one, because they left the rabbit carving in a different place each time: staring at him from the center of the floor when he entered, peering around a table leg, tucked ironically under his blanket with its wide sleepless eyes.

That day, he’d thought the rabbit was gone until he found it stuffed inside his pillow, where the key had been. No one had said anything to him about it, but he’d wondered what the conversation had been like when they showed it to Tywin. Robb hoped he had said: “No need to worry, I gave it to him when I was drunk.”

Even if he’d still had it, though, it wouldn't have mattered. They used the exterior deadbolt when they wanted to make extra sure he stayed there, and tonight was one of those nights. His least favorite guard (Robb had just decided that) had brought him back from the stables, locked and bolted him in, and then told him all about the wedding through the closed door.

The story spreading now was that it was a love match: that Tyrion had defended Sansa from cruel King Joffrey, that Sansa had nursed Tyrion back to health after he’d taken a terrible injury at the Blackwater, and their mutual adoration had grown so strong that they simply couldn’t wait to be wed. And since the city had already been prepared for a royal wedding, they saw no better opportunity to create a little joy after all the pain they’d both endured. It was a romantic tale of heroism and devotion. A scar-faced dwarf with a lion’s heart and a traitor’s lonely, beautiful daughter finding love where it was least expected, in spite of all the odds. Nobles and smallfolk alike seemed to find it quite touching. It was obvious horseshit.

Robb spent the night pacing angrily around his quarters, seething, hating Tywin and all Lannisters all over again. He knew very well why he hadn’t been told: it was because he would have gone to any lengths necessary to interfere, to stop it, to help her escape. It wasn’t right that they could just do that. Decide Sansa’s future for her. Force a sixteen-year-old girl to share the life and the bed of a man twice her age and half her size, whom she barely knew, without so much as the consent of her family, much less herself.

The morning after, instead of his usual escort down to the stables at dawn, he was called up to the Tower. There was no mystery about the reason. It took an inhuman amount of effort not to punch Tywin in the face the moment he saw him. His guard seemed reluctant to step away, like he could feel the rage radiating off him and wanted to be able to intervene.

“I see you’ve already heard,” Tywin said when he saw Robb’s incensed expression, but he unconcernedly waved the guard outside. “I just thought you might like to know that it all went quite well.”

Of course—there was the Lannister bastard he’d known Tywin really was, just trying to rub it in. He’d been so stupid to start letting his guard down. “I thought you might like to know that there are at least seven different ways you can fuck yourself,” Robb replied.

“Now, now,” Tywin chided him with a wry look. “That’s no way to speak to family.”

It went red behind Robb’s eyes. “We—you—we aren’t family.”

“A Stark has wed a Lannister, so I don’t know what you’d call it,” Tywin said placidly.

“I know what I’d call you,” Robb snapped.

He was still irritatingly nonplussed. “I’m sure there are a great many things.”

Robb could hardly form words through his fury. “At least tell me why. Is this some new sort of game you’re playing with me?”

“In fact, it has nothing to do with you,” Tywin replied, sitting in his armchair and nonchalantly crossing an ankle over a knee. He didn’t invite Robb to sit, and Robb wouldn’t have. “It’s not my preference either, but if Jaime never returns, or does but continues refusing to do his duty and retire from the Kingsguard to wed a suitable match himself, at least one Lannister needs to start producing heirs. The other noble families have historically been quite hesitant to put their highborn daughters forth for this union, not that I can blame them, even though in such a case, Tyrion’s children would stand to inherit a great deal.”

That only made Robb angrier. “And do you think I should be happy at the idea of my little sister being the one to provide them for him?”

“Don’t be a child about it yourself,” Tywin remonstrated him. “I didn’t expect you to be pleased on a visceral level, hence why your invitation to the event seems to have been lost, but I thought at least you’d have the sense to see the mutual benefit of the arrangement. She is of a perfectly marriageable age, and the match is an honor to your house.”

“I’m listening,” Robb ground out. “Explain the honor.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, your sister’s name would not have bought her the line of other suitors it once might have, bearing the stain of disgrace as it does,” Tywin explained, as if it were obvious. “Her future is now more secure than it has ever been. As for the present, I can assure you that Lady Sansa will continue to be quite safe and comfortable."

"You're the one who seems to think words are cheap," Robb shot back. "But at least even you aren't trying to claim she'll be happy."

"I don't know what you think marriages are, but happiness is something of a rarity in them," Tywin said. "Personal feelings aside, you would not be pleased to see her seated as the Lady of Casterly Rock? For an heir with Stark blood to rule it and possess its riches one day?”

Robb’s eyes flashed. “The Others can take Casterly Rock and the Lannister name with it.”

In return, Tywin’s narrowed. “Careful, boy. I’m being forbearing with you because of the circumstances, but I still have limits.”

“They will sing songs about your kindness at your funeral,” Robb muttered, thinking it was high time he began properly brainstorming how to kill him.

“That’s enough. Not another word.” Lord Lannister stood and came back around the desk, and Robb flinched a little, because he expected a swift backhand and knew he would hit back this time, he was coiled like a spring for it and wouldn’t be able to stop himself. But Tywin was only moving to show him the door. “I won’t speak to you any more about this today, but I expect you to calm yourself by tomorrow. It’s already been done. Try to make good use of the time to think about better ways to handle that reality and figure out what you’d like to happen next.”

Robb had no plans to calm himself, but he bit his tongue and left the Hand’s solar in resentful silence. His guard peeked in to make sure Tywin was still unharmed before they left.

 

That morning, Robb did the bare minimum to make sure the horses would be fine. Then he fought the biggest opponent he could find in the vicinity of the stableyard—a porter named Orin who was rumored to be Gregor Clegane’s bastard. He certainly had the temperament to be entertained by violence like his alleged father—all Robb needed to do was ask if he wanted to fight, and Orin snarled and rushed him with no further provocation.

Robb almost won, just by the sheer force of the fury he was pouring into the match. He was nimbler, too, and was able to duck and evade most of his blows in the beginning while scoring plenty of his own. But Orin, several years older than him and nearly twice his size just in muscle, eventually changed up his strategy and managed to trip him, then pin him, and rained down blows until the guards who had been enjoying the fight decided to intervene before permanent damage was done on their watch.

Perhaps he wasn’t the Mountain’s bastard or his mother’s nature had balanced him out, though, because when the four soldiers had managed to drag him off and Robb dizzily stood up, Orin grinned down at him and shook his hand. Then Robb staggered back up to his room, jerking away from his guard’s attempts to help him, and crawled into bed for the rest of the day.

When he sullenly brought out the dawn horse the next morning, Lord Tywin scanned him with a critical eye. Robb knew he must have looked a sight, covered in scrapes and bruises, with a swollen lip, bloody knuckles, and one eye so puffy he could barely open it.

“You know, I’ve been getting complaints from the knights for months about my pet king beating up their squires,” Tywin told him.

“Have you, my lord?” Robb drawled.

“I’ve told them that perhaps they should train them to either ignore you or fight better.” Tywin snorted. “Seems at least one of them has finally taken my advice.”

“Most of them do ignore me now,” Robb muttered. “Had to fight a porter to find someone who was fucking worth it.”

“Hm,” Tywin said. “I believe I know just the porter you mean. Are you better?”

Robb’s jaw tightened. In truth, he wasn’t. The fight hadn’t helped at all, because this wasn’t about him—this was his little sister they were talking about. Instead of channeling the hurt and anger into a physical form he was more capable of dealing with, the only result had been that today he felt everything outside and inside. But he stared at the ground and didn’t answer, not trusting himself to speak without trampling over a line.

Lord Tywin looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “Despite my best efforts, Tyrion has always been a weak and sentimental creature at heart,” he said. “He will be good to your sister, and I believe that would be true even if I hadn't ordered him to be.”

That simple assurance meant more to Robb than promises of gold and jewels and Casterly-fucking-Rock. But it was also the word of a Lannister, which reduced its value by at least half. “You have to let me see her,” he said.

He’d phrased it more like a command than a request, but Tywin didn’t comment on it. “Fine,” he said. “Once a month.”

Robb blinked: he hadn’t expected him to agree so readily, much less propose a recurring schedule.

His surprise didn’t go unnoticed. “I told you before, keeping you apart was the late king’s little scheme, not mine, except for the wedding,” Tywin said. “The first meeting will be arranged when you’d like.” He waved a hand at Robb’s face. “Maybe wait until the swelling goes down. You’ll terrify the girl.”

“She would think it was you,” Robb said.

“Anyone who sees you will think it was me.” Tywin lifted a shoulder. “It’s probably best if you let them. I didn’t get my reputation for free.” He mounted his horse and looked toward the gate.

“Lord Lannister?” Robb said, and Lannister looked back down. “Just so you know. It doesn’t matter what I have to do or what happens to me after. If he hurts her, I’ll kill him.” He didn’t mean it as a threat, just as a statement of fact. I’ll kill you, too, he thought, but he did always seem to have more caution and sense after he’d taken a beating of whatever variety, so at least Orin’s had done him enough good that he managed not to say that part.

“Yes, yes,” Tywin replied, wheeling his horse around. “Or just make him wish he was never born. That one would be easier. He’s had practice.”

Automatically, Robb moved to open the gate for the Hand, and closed it again once he’d left. He refreshed the hay in the horse’s stall, then leaned back against the wall and slid to the floor, gingerly touching his eye and feeling his ribs throb with the bruises Orin had left on them. Gods, he should probably find a better way of dealing with things like this. He just never knew how to feel in this damn place. At least a little violence provided an easy answer to that.

And at least he would finally get to see Sansa again.

Chapter 17: A Reunion

It was hard to wait any longer, but Robb had already been waiting for months, and Tywin had made a good point: he couldn’t make Sansa see him like this for the first time after so long. But he was looking less rough after a week or so and his patience was just about depleted by then too, so he decided it was time to ask.

He hadn’t spoken to Lord Tywin much that week—it was just safer not to—and had only responded to instructions or answered questions with a clipped, respectful impassivity that seemed to faintly entertain the Hand in the same way as his backtalk. Since Robb understood by now how well the man could read him, he guessed he could hear quite clearly past the “Yes, sir,” and “Right away, sir,” to what Robb actually meant, which was “With all due respect, if you hurt my family, I’ll kill you and not particularly care how honorable I am about it, sir.”

It made him wonder if Tywin would take back the offer or give him a hard time when he made his request at dawn, in the same polite tone with the same murderous undercurrent. But all Lannister said was, “The relevant parties will be informed and the guards will show you where to go this afternoon.”

Once Jeryd showed up to wrangle the horses for the afternoon and Robb had tidied himself up a bit, two guards escorted him through the corridors of the Red Keep to the apartments Sansa shared with Tyrion now. When they arrived, one went inside first and did a quick sweep, locking off various rooms, while the other waited with Robb in the hall. Then the first guard came back out and gestured for Robb to go in alone, which surprised him: an unsupervised meeting was a privilege he certainly hadn’t expected.

The instant the door closed behind him, there was a blur, and his name cried out in a familiar voice. Then there was a redheaded girl in his arms, weeping into his chest. Robb’s throat was tight as he said her name, and he held her tighter.

The marks from the fight had mostly faded, but when Sansa stepped back she put her hand on his face, gentle and soft, and brushed lightly over the healing scrape on his cheekbone and the lightening remnants of the bruising under his eye. She didn’t say anything, but her tears didn’t dry yet, and Robb thought maybe he should have waited a few more days.

“Are you all right?” he managed to say, taking a long look at her. She looked healthy. Taller than she’d been when she left Winterfell. It made Robb happy to see that she was dressed in a beautiful green gown, because Sansa had always loved pretty clothes.

Sansa dashed its silky sleeve across her eyes and took a deep, sniffling breath. “I’m all right. Better now.”

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner,” Robb said, trying hard not to cry himself, because his little sister didn’t need to see that right now. “After you’ve been alone for so long.”

“Not so alone,” she reassured him. “It was horrible at the beginning, especially once they sent Myrcella to Dorne and I was left with Joffrey and Cersei, but it hasn’t been like that ever since you came. And Lady Margaery and her grandmother have sort of adopted me these last months, which has been so lovely. I don’t think other political prisoners get as many sunny afternoons with tea and cake in the gardens as I do.”

That was good news, but it didn’t soothe Robb yet. “And your…” He choked a little on the word. “Husband, is he…”

“Lord Tyrion is kind,” Sansa said quickly. “He has always been, to me, when he’s been able to." Her voice got a little quieter to add, "And he hasn’t touched me, not even that way, not even on the wedding night. I don’t believe he wanted this any more than I did.”

Robb was so relieved that he didn’t know what to do with the sudden space where his rage had been. He took her hand. “You aren’t terribly unhappy, Sansa?”

“Happy or unhappy doesn’t matter right now,” Sansa said. “I think more than anything I feel lucky. With how close I came to being wed to Joffrey, I know I am fortunate that it is someone kind, and someone who is willing to give me peace. He would not have been.”

“No,” Robb agreed. “May he dwell in the worst of the seven hells.”

“And it could have been Lord Baelish.” Sansa shuddered. “He looks at me like he wants to eat me. Or at least he used to. Maybe he won’t anymore.”

Littlefinger had been sitting next to Sansa in the audience when Robb had bent the knee. There might be another killing vision in the mix soon, he thought. It could be nice to see this one. “Tell Tyrion if he does,” he said. “He can’t be seen to let that stand, and Lannisters always pay their debts.”

Sansa nodded, and then suddenly clutched at his sleeve. “But I’m being selfish—you’ve been with Lord Tywin, and that day in the throne room was—” She started tearing up anew. “I know he’s being so awful to you.”

Robb didn’t even know how to begin answering that. Had he been awful? There had been moments, certainly, especially at the beginning, but in retrospect, he wasn’t sure if even those had ever been genuinely vicious. And now—Lannister traded quips with him, drank with him, paid attention to his opinions, and was clearly giving him the space and time to work through all his pain without so much as a blink of judgment about how he did it. He was fucking helping him, and doing it in a way that allowed Robb to tell himself he wasn’t, since he wouldn’t accept help if he had to admit he needed it. The worst thing Tywin had personally done was simply to unite their houses, which had not been intended or apparently even received as harm.

Robb had spent all week furious with the man, hating him, wanting to kill him all over again, and now he couldn’t decide if he was being fair to feel that way, or whether it had ever been fair. He resolved to think more about it later, but Sansa needed an answer now. “He…I don’t know. It hasn’t really been like that. He treats me more like a squire than a prisoner.”

“Joffrey told me afterwards that you were going to be sleeping in a dog’s cage. Eating rotten food scraps. Fighting hounds from the kennels.” Sansa’s tears were slipping down her cheeks in earnest again now. “You don’t have to lie to protect me, Robb. I’ve grown up since I saw you last.”

“Sansa,” Robb said gently, reaching out to wipe her tears, trying to do it softly so his calloused hands wouldn’t scrape her smooth skin. “Look at me. Do I look starved? Or filthy?” He rolled up his sleeves. “Do I bear any scars from the teeth of said hounds?”

She did look at him then, really looked, and it was like he could see months of pain melt away from her. Her eyes traveled over his forearms—the few scars he wore there were neither bite-shaped nor fresh—and her fingers brushed the lion’s crest embroidered into his uniform over his heart. Finally, she said, in a small, barely-believing-it voice, “You’re really all right?”

“I think overall, you’ve had a worse time of it than me,” Robb guessed. “I have a room with a bed and two meals a day. I work with Lord Tywin’s horses. When I get in fights it isn’t with hounds and it’s because I start them.”

The last part got a watery laugh from Sansa as she wiped her eyes. “You’re still a brute after everything. You always did love to fight.”

“And you’re still a lady,” Robb said. “They haven’t changed that either.”

“They can’t. Mother taught me too well.” Sansa wrapped her arms around her brother again, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“You’re going to make your pretty dress smell like a stable,” he joked.

“Fuck the dress,” Sansa said, perhaps a little less of a lady after all. “I have others.”

They were quiet for a little bit. Robb wondered if they were thinking the same thing.

Sansa said it first. “I miss them.”

Robb’s throat was so tight again that all he could do was nod.

She let him go and gestured for Robb to take a seat on her luxurious upholstered chaise sofa. But it was too fancy and Robb couldn’t be convinced to sit anywhere but the floor, so she joined him there instead.

“I was there for all of it,” Sansa managed to say. “When father was arrested I pleaded for his life, in front of the whole court, and Joffrey told me as long as he confessed he wouldn’t—wouldn’t—” Then she started weeping. Robb was still trying to be strong for her and hold himself together, though, until she took his hands, looked into his eyes, and said, through her sniffles, “Robb, I swear to whatever gods you prefer that if you force me to be the only one who cries today, I’ll give you a new black eye myself.”

So that made Robb laugh and cry at the same time. And then, for a while, it was just the tears.

“Joffrey made me look at his head on the wall, after,” Sansa said, hardly able to breathe at the memory. “And I was so, so afraid he would make me look at yours next. We were still betrothed then, of course, and he said he’d give me your head as a wedding present.” She paused for a moment to compose herself, and when she looked back up there was a spark in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “But I was proud of myself that day, and you would have been too, because I told him right to his smug little face that maybe you would give me his.”

Robb was very proud, and told her so after he caught his own breath. “Gods, I wish I could have done it,” he said, rubbing his palms against his damp eyes. “Seems like someone else beat me to it. Were you at the little shit’s wedding?”

“It was the best wedding I’ve ever been to,” Sansa said, blending her own sniffles and laughter now. “The feast was good, but the entertainment was better.”

“Seven hells, Sansa,” Robb remarked, squeezing her hand again, like he was making sure she was real. “Have I told you that I love you yet today?”

“I love you,” she said. “I missed you. It was hard knowing you were here somewhere.”

“For me too,” Robb told her. “I was going to try to find you, but…Joffrey said…”

“It’s all right,” Sansa interrupted. “I know all about the kinds of things Joffrey said. I don’t need to hear about any more of them. It’s much nicer to think about how he couldn’t say anything at all, at the end.”

“I could hardly stop smiling the day I heard.” Robb grinned again at the memory. “Do they have any idea who poisoned him?”

“I’ve no idea if they’re right, but the people at court are saying it was an assassin from across the sea,” Sansa answered. “Sent by a Targaryen who survived, or something.”

“Interesting.” Robb mulled it over. “If they were trying to get revenge on a Baratheon for usurping the throne, I’m afraid they picked the wrong target.”

“Father was right, there wasn’t a drop of anything but Lannister in him,” Sansa agreed. “But they picked a better target than they knew.”

The siblings were quiet for a little while, and again, Robb thought they could both sense it when their thoughts drifted to something else.

“At least father has company, wherever the gods take souls,” Sansa said. “Maybe Rickon is sitting on his shoulders right now. Maybe Bran can climb again there.”

Robb didn’t say: It’s my fault they’re dead. I sent Theon home and then he did what he did. Because his sister would say things like: Robb, no, don’t even think something like that, you couldn’t have known it would end badly. He didn’t want to hear that, because he did think something like that, and he could have known, and there was no point in putting Sansa through the ordeal of trying to talk him out of it.

So he dug his nails into his palm hard to steady himself and said, “Bran would like flying even better than climbing. You can go so much higher and see so much more. And I think Rickon would stay on the ground either way, so he can run, but if Bran’s a ghost, he can probably fly.”

That was all they said, because then they were holding each other and crying again, Sansa into Robb’s red-uniformed shoulder, Robb into her red hair, with their water-blue eyes quickly becoming rimmed in matching shades of red as well.

Once the freshest round of tears was spent, it hurt too much to speak any more about the dead. They dried their eyes and Sansa pretended to wring out her hair. Then they started speculating about Arya and Jon and their mother, wondering where they were right now and what they were doing. Sansa seemed to know as confidently as Robb did that Arya was alive, as if it would have been genuinely absurd to believe anything else.

“Do you think she’s in trouble?” Robb asked.

“I think that wherever she is, she is the trouble,” Sansa said. “Did you know Jon gave her a sword? The first month in King’s Landing she told me she was taking dancing lessons, but she kept coming back covered in bruises…”

Robb’s eyes crinkled up; leave it to Jon to make sure their feral tomboy of a baby sister was armed to the teeth for her new adventure. “He didn’t tell me about the sword either, actually. Did you scold her when you found out?”

“Well, obviously,” Sansa admitted. “So improper, you know. Highly unladylike. But father hired her the fighting instructor himself, so there was no way I was getting her to trade the thing back for sewing needles. And I’m so very glad that she has it now.”

Robb was proud of both his sisters. “Wonder if she’s stabbed anyone yet.”

The rest of their time passed with more laughter than tears, and ended far too quickly by the time the guard opened the door.

But when Robb gave Sansa a final hug goodbye, he got to say that he would see her again next month, so he walked away holding the memory of his little sister’s smile.

Chapter 18: Knives Down

Notes:

This chapter is on the longer side (5k), just as a heads up since they're usually shorter. As always, your thoughts and comments are so welcome--I'm deeply appreciative of readers' engagement with this story and the characters, and it makes it even more of a joy to write. Thank you all!

The first part of Robb’s conversation with Sansa had left him in a thoughtful mood. And that evening, for the first time ever since he had come to King’s Landing, he climbed the steps up the Tower of the Hand without being summoned there.

The guard knocked and said his name, and there was the sound of footsteps and a short reply: “One moment, please.” Robb recognized the voice as Tywin’s steward, Lyle—a capable and practical man who materialized at Robb’s door from time to time in the evenings to whisk him off for a bath and hair trim and shave whenever he was getting scruffy, and who didn’t take any nonsense about that or anything else.

Conveniently, Robb didn’t give him any, because he didn’t especially care what he looked like. But Lyle had asked Robb recently if he ever worked with “the little one,” presumably Garrick, because someone needed to tell the boy that if he didn’t stop dodging him, Lyle would start cutting all his hair off to get more mileage out of the sessions. Robb had shaken his head and smiled, because although Garrick had evidently been scared straight about visiting the stables, he liked knowing that he was still being stubborn about his hair.

After a brief delay, the footsteps returned and Lyle just said, “Make sure he doesn’t have any weapons.”

Robb rolled his eyes, kicked off his boots, and held out his arms, letting the guard pat him down for hidden daggers or any other suspicious objects. When the search came up empty, he was let inside.

Since servants often dropped off a plate for Robb on their way up the stairs, he knew Lord Tywin typically shunned suppers in the Red Keep’s Great Hall, preferring to dine alone rather than amidst the commotion of other nobles or the undoubtedly tense silence of his family. Tonight, Lyle guided Robb to the Hand’s private dining room—an austere, sparsely arranged space furnished with a long, sturdy oak table and six chairs.

When Robb stepped into the room, he was half-distractedly waved into one of the chairs by the Lord Hand, who currently occupied the table’s head with a book in hand: the half-distraction in question. As he sat, Robb looked around. The table was carpeted in excess—roast venison garnished in herbs, flaky game pie, colorful vegetables, fresh-baked bread, a pot of stew, a bowl of assorted fruits, flagons of wine, and more. It all looked barely touched. Tywin also always seemed to have books and ledgers and papers piled in neat stacks around whatever flat surface he was nearest, including here, as if stepping away from work for an instant would have been an unthinkable sin.

“I keep telling them not to bring all this, and they persist in ignoring me,” Tywin said, noticing him looking and raising an eyebrow at the kitchen servant waiting in the corner. “An unnecessary use of time and effort, if you ask me. Perhaps they’ll take me seriously if I request the chef’s head on a platter tomorrow night.”

The server brought Robb a clean set of dishes and utensils with no more prompting than a tilt of Tywin’s head, then hurried away, apparently dismissed by a second tilt toward the door. Perhaps, if she was brave enough to repeat the joke, she'd inform the chef of the peril brought upon him by the wanton inefficiency of his culinary endeavors. Perhaps, if the chef was brave enough, he'd send a head of cabbage up for Lord Tywin tomorrow. 

Robb held up the dinner knife, which was easily long and sharp enough to kill. “Thought you were concerned about me having weapons.”

The Hand set down the book he’d been reading and nudged his own place setting away. “As long as I don’t wield mine at the same time, your foundational condition to attack will not be met. If you’d brought one yourself, it would have signaled a change in your intentions.”

“Outplayed once again.” Robb wasn’t about to turn down an extra meal, so he redirected his stabbing energy toward the contents of the platters.

Tywin poured him a cup of wine. “Is Lady Sansa well?”

Hesitating long enough to decide how to answer—and to swallow a mouthful of crusty black bread and red-pepper-studded white cheese that left a pleasant heat in his mouth—Robb chose a vague truth that wouldn’t make Tywin suspect heirs might not be forthcoming from the union. “She seems content, my lord.”

“Did she appear coerced or pressured to say so?”

Gears turned in Robb’s head. “No, she didn’t. Is that why the guards stayed outside?”

Tywin sipped from his own glass. “I don’t know about you, but I tend to be much more skeptical of the things people say when they’re being loomed over by men with swords who will scurry back to someone with a report.”

“But you like reports,” Robb said, gesturing at a stack of papers. “Did you at least ask them to listen in?”

“Didn’t we already discuss that reconnaissance isn’t my forte?” Tywin asked, with a droll air. “I suppose if you’ve hatched a plot today, I’ll find out about it the same way as your ambushes: by surprise. So few things surprise me anymore that at least it’s a break in routine when one does.”

“It was a rare afternoon in King’s Landing, then,” Robb replied. “Spying and plotting were apparently both off the agenda. It was just…good to finally see her again.”

“She’s your blood. That’s important.” Tywin gave him an evaluating look. “I hope you didn’t come here to thank me for it.”

Robb was well aware that Lord Tywin liked thanks about as well as apologies. “No, sir.”

“Then say what you would like to say.”

“All right,” Robb said, but he quaffed half the cup of wine first. “I think I don’t understand why you haven’t been crueler to me all this time. Because it hasn’t always been for lack of trying on my end.”

Judging by the spark of interest that lit behind his eyes, Tywin looked as though he expected to enjoy this conversation. “Enlighten me. Why should I have been crueler to you?”

Robb shrugged. “I don’t know. Because I’m a traitor to the realm? For fun? Because you’re a Lannister?”

“Oh, yes,” Tywin said dryly. “I forgot about the contract we have to sign when we’re born, before they let us wear the lion.”

“How does it go again?” Robb asked. “Be blonde, have green eyes, be an evil heartless psychopath?”

Eyes narrowing, Tywin leaned forward. “Keep going, boy. You may motivate me to find a new way to answer the questions you’re asking.”

Robb lifted his hands placatingly. “Sorry.” Then he added, “I forgot, you don’t like apologies. Sorry for that too, my lord.”

Tywin sat back again, and the danger passed. “Can’t even help yourself, can you? It’s like I said before, Starks are simple creatures.”

“Aye, that one’s in our contract.”

The Hand’s mouth quirked up a bit on one side, which Robb had recently decided was his version of raucous laughter. “At least you’re quicker on your feet than most of your humorless northern kin.”

Robb got back on track. “Joffrey seemed to believe you’ve been tormenting me in some rather creative ways. Or perhaps that was only what he told my sister.”

“Ah,” Tywin mused. “Yes, the boy always took pleasure in blood sport. He had certain notions I did not bother disabusing him of. His Grace would have been apoplectic if he’d known yours has been a relatively dignified captivity, when you’ve allowed it to be.”

Eying the platter of venison, Robb pictured the deer bleeding and dying on the ground and decided not to take any. “So you mean you don’t take joy in it.”

“Certainly not. Joy is not a factor I consider relevant in such matters.” He lifted his wine and drank. “Maybe if I thought it was useful to be crueler to you, I would be. Fear is a tool you can wield to serve a purpose, nothing more. And it is only one of many possible tools. It isn’t ideal to rely on any singular one too heavily. Narrows the options.”

Wanting a little more information, Robb prodded, “So that’s also the reason you’ve been treating me fairly, then? Because it’s…useful?”

“It is useful,” Tywin told him. “If House Stark has a future—which does remain an if at present, before you ask—it is you. And so yes, I could have had you maimed, or thrown you in a dank dungeon to rot in chains, or taken some of my grandson’s more imaginative advice, if I wanted. But taking a long-term view, where's the sense in giving you the scars as a permanent reminder of your grudge against me?”

Robb chewed it over along with a roasted carrot. “When you’d rather have my loyalty, is that it?”

Tywin refilled Robb’s wine without asking. “I’d imagine you’ll be more reluctant to grant me that, now that you know it’s a ploy.”

“Wasn’t planning to grant it to you anyway, my lord,” Robb muttered, but he drank.

“Don’t be too forthcoming about that,” Tywin advised him. “If you get to be too much of a genuine thorn in my side—and I don’t mean the kind you’re being now—I could always just belatedly grant your death wish. That was always something of a contingency plan. It’s much easier to kill someone a little late than to un-kill them after the fact, I’ve found.”

“Is it really?” Robb inquired acidly. “I’m learning so much today. I hope you don’t think you’re scaring me.”

“Threatening death upon someone who doesn’t fear it is an example of a poor selection of tool,” Tywin said. “But I’m not threatening you. Merely informing you.”

“Right,” Robb replied. “Inform me about my death more often. Sounds fun.”

Tywin didn’t seem upset by the tool’s continued inefficacy. “I hope you don’t mind me being so candid with you. You don’t seem like the type who would.”

“Now that you mention it, I did expect there to be more lies and manipulation, at the beginning,” Robb granted.

“I’m sure,” Tywin said. “Instead of honesty and manipulation?”

Robb tipped his wine goblet toward him. “Exactly.”

“Investigate your premise,” Tywin suggested, like he was pressing deeper about a battle maneuver Robb had suggested. “Why would I want to lie to you?”

Hesitating, Robb replied, “To trick me.”

“Do you consider yourself easy to trick?”

These days, Robb wasn’t always sure what he considered himself. “I hope not, my lord.”

“And do you believe there’s any reason I’d need to trick you?”

Robb swallowed some wine, and it went down hard. “I suppose there isn’t. At least, not currently. Although maybe you do lie to me. You didn’t tell me about Sansa.”

“You didn’t ask,” Tywin pointed out.

“Fair enough,” Robb admitted. “I suppose withholding information is more of a neighbor than a twin.”

“Now flip the question,” Tywin instructed. “Without bringing any tedious moralizing into it, why might I not want to lie to you?”

“Because,” Robb answered slowly, “if you lie to me once, you know I won’t believe anything you say again.”

“And so the possible benefit does not outvalue the possible cost,” Tywin said with a nod. “You’re capable enough of understanding that when designing a battle plan. It might be helpful for you to start asking yourself similar questions about people, if you’d like to understand their motivations.”

“You want me to believe you when it matters,” Robb stated. “Like when you say your fallback plan is to kill me.”

“It’s far from my favored scenario, of course, and I’d really prefer not to incur the undying enmity of the North with a move like that,” Tywin replied casually. “Fortunately, I don’t imagine it will be necessary. But if the situation ever became so dire, Stark wouldn’t be the first name I’ve removed from the map. Ask the Reynes of Castamere about it.”

“I would, my lord, but I’ve heard the song,” Robb said darkly. “There wouldn’t be a soul to hear me ask.”

“So the question becomes,” Tywin reflected, “what kinds of songs would you like them to sing about you?”

Robb looked out the window across the table, at the sprawling city far below them going grey in the falling dusk. “Not that I care, but I’m sure the bards have written some already. Something immensely creative about how the wolf became a dog, I’d imagine.”

“The themes are predictable,” Tywin agreed.

“Anyway, I think it would be worse if you were just being merciful out of the goodness of your heart,” Robb said. “Or out of pity. So I’m glad it’s a tactic.”

The Hand swirled the wine in his glass. “Rest assured, if goodness ever tried to grow there, it quickly choked on the vine. And I have never pitied you. But there is one more reason I prefer you alive and well, and I should think it’s obvious.”

“Forgive me once again,” Robb said. “Maybe I really am a bit slow.”

“It is a frivolous reason, I suppose,” Tywin said with a slight grimace, as if it pained him to confess to any degree of frivolity in his life. “You amuse me.”

“Do I?” Robb knew he did; it was obvious and usually pissed him off. “Half my jokes result in a lecture. You’ve threatened me twice tonight alone.”

“Yes, I mainly keep you alive for the other half,” Tywin returned. “But I think what’s even more interesting is simply the way you are.”

Robb needed more convincing at that part. “What way am I?”

“For one thing, I had assumed it would be more difficult to teach you about your youth and your pride before we could begin anything productive,” Tywin said. “The way I see it, at an age like yours, that particular lesson is much better learned on the wrong side of a sword’s belt than its blade. Of course, typically the one on the wrong side doesn’t agree that they should be there, so imagine my surprise when I realized that you’d started teaching the lesson to yourself, probably more effectively than I could.”

“Guess I’m just a better teacher than you,” Robb said flippantly, wondering if he could collect a third threat.

Lannister raised his eyebrows. “On second thought, I’m not sure that you’ve completed your schooling, boy. Perhaps you should schedule some more lessons.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, my lord,” Robb replied, deciding to count it as at least half a threat. “Is ‘teaching me about my youth’ also why you insist on calling me a boy?”

“I call you a boy because you are a boy,” Lord Tywin said coolly. “A boy who walked into my war tent very obviously accustomed to things going his way and shocked and furious to discover that reality doesn’t always abide by his plans. And certainly a boy much less direly in need of a beheading than a good thrashing or two to set his head a little straighter about himself, which is an adjustment that requires it to remain on his shoulders.”

“Now you are being too candid,” Robb grumbled, slouching a bit in his chair. “I personally still think the beheading would have been a safer option for you.”

“There are safe options, and there are interesting options, and they rarely overlap.” Tywin shrugged. “But like I said. I could still change my mind.”

Robb impaled a small herbed potato with his knife. It was the only utensil he needed; he liked how it felt in his hand and hadn’t even touched his fork. “Are you sure you don’t want to change it right now?”

Lord Tywin watched him eat the potato. “Reasonably sure.”

“Did it set your head straighter about yourself whenever my armies thrashed yours on the battlefield?”

“It did, actually, yes,” Tywin answered, unperturbed. “Failure and pain are very instructive things if you’re willing and able to listen to them, which I believe that you are, as am I. So consider that I’m only returning the favor. Consider, as well, that I’ll do you another favor tonight if you don’t watch your tone.”

Robb sat back up. Three-and-a-half threats were enough for the collection, and although he did get a nice adrenaline rush from pushing the limits, he hadn’t come here to play the game. “Consider it considered, my lord.”

Unexpectedly, Tywin took on a slightly pensive look then. “My squire just before you was also young and proud, and now he’s in the ground next to a lot of other young, proud men who did have to learn the lesson from the blade in the end.”

“You’ve never mentioned him before,” Robb said slowly. Although Jeryd had once, the first day they’d met. It only took him a moment to remember the name—Dantis Marbrand. He wondered if Tywin would say it.

“He was good at saying the right things, and bad at actually doing the work to understand them,” Tywin said, keeping Dantis nameless. “Rather the opposite of you there, on both counts.”

“Half offended,” Robb replied, but didn’t want to turn the tone unserious, so he inquired, “If it’s all right to ask, sir, how did he die?”

“Defied orders on the field and went after the Blackfish,” Lord Tywin told him. “Nearly twenty and thought he’d make his name with a kill like that. Instead he missed the end of the war by a few hours and your uncle swam merrily back upriver, and I doubt he even remembers the fight.”

“I see,” Robb said. It probably hadn’t been much of a contest: even if Dantis had been good for a squire, Brynden Tully was a formidable warrior, one of his best generals, a seasoned veteran of half a hundred battles. “Do you think about him often?”

“No,” Tywin answered, not even hesitating. “He wasted enough of his potential and my time before he let his thirst for glory get himself killed. I don’t see a reason to let him continue wasting the latter now. If he’d lived to achieve knighthood, he probably would have just died in a duel over some witless insult quickly enough.”

Twirling his knife absentmindedly, Robb considered the information in silence for a moment. House Marbrand hailed from Ashemark, a fortress up in the hills southeast of the Crag. Robb knew their castle well, because he’d been there. It had served as his command base for a week or two. Dantis must have been livid at the news that the Young Wolf and the Blackfish had taken Ashemark shortly after the Battle of Oxcross, along with several other nearby keeps that had been hastily abandoned by the families of the westermen whose houses numbered among the Lannister banners.

So of course his head would have been full of glory and revenge when he finally spotted his enemy after months of waiting for the chance. Of course he wouldn’t let the opportunity slip to challenge an opponent who, despite his fearsome reputation, had grown weathered and grey in the decades since Brynden had first made his own name in the War of the Ninepenny Kings. The future Ser Dantis would have had boasting fodder for a lifetime about the day he helped put down Robb Stark’s revolt and reclaimed his family’s ancestral home, along with the other territories that had been seized by the northerners and rivermen in the west. About the day he slew the legendary Blackfish in single combat, despite the naysayers who said he couldn’t.

Except he couldn’t, and hadn’t, and never became a Ser at all, and wouldn’t get to try again.

Maester Luwin’s drills on the noble houses flashed into Robb’s mind, suddenly. It had been so long since those lessons, but he still remembered them well. The Marbrand sigil was a tree on fire, its skeletal branches wreathed in the orange glow of the flames. Their house motto was “Burning Bright.”

He thought about Jeryd. House Serrett of Silverhill. A brilliant blue peacock standing tall, tailfeathers spread. “I Have No Rival.”

Garrick. House Lydden of the Deep Den. A white badger with a black stripe, claws sharp and ready to defend its burrow. “None So Fierce.”

Whatever ancestors had been responsible for choosing sigils, they had done a good job, Robb thought. Or maybe it wasn’t so much about the men who made the sigils anymore. Maybe at this point, it was the sigils that made the men.

He asked Lord Tywin, “So you don’t think I’ll waste your time?”

“You might.” Tywin shrugged. “Up to you. Although squires who waste my time usually end up discovering they’ve wasted more of their own in the process.”

“But I’m not really your squire,” Robb said, because it was about time someone did.

“Well,” Tywin said, “you’re wearing the uniform, anyway.”

“Since you’re in such a mood for honesty, let me ask you this,” Robb said after a brief silence. “You clearly believe you have things to teach me, and you seem like a man who has long-term plans, so is one of them to turn me into someone like you?”

Tywin gave him the same indulgent look he wore whenever Robb insulted him. “Do you think that’s something I can do?”

“No,” Robb answered immediately.

“Then if I can’t, the question is moot,” Tywin said. “And if I could, I’d think you weak-minded and it would bore me. Plus, I do enough of that sort of training with my squires who are my squires, although some take to it better than others, so there’s no originality in an intent like that. As far as it concerns me, you can learn whatever you find worthwhile. Don’t learn the rest, since I imagine you’re too stubborn to do that anyway. Maybe the world already has all the Tywin Lannisters it can hold.”

“Maybe it has one too many,” Robb suggested, before he could stop himself. Fuck. That should have been an inside thought. It would probably blaze right through Tywin’s final line for an acceptable level of insolence.

But Tywin’s expression remained maddeningly tolerant. “Do you think so?”

Robb’s attention immediately locked onto the man’s hand when he picked up his knife. Lord Lannister leaned forward a bit, slowly, not even watching Robb’s face—or his fingers, to see if they would tighten around the handle of his own with an enemy in range—and speared an olive from a little bowl just to Robb’s left.

One lunge, and one thrust, and there would be a knife in Tywin’s throat or his heart: they were both in striking distance, Robb had run the calculations in an instant. Time felt slow and sticky while his mind whirred. This wasn’t like the sword: they had the exact same weapon, there would be no dishonor in it. Before today, he’d been waiting for an opportunity like this since Sansa’s wedding night—no, ever since he’d been captured, actually—and here it was, right in front of him, freely offered. And even if the hate that had accompanied that hope had vanished somewhere back into the ether again tonight, the memory of it was still in him, a vengeful spirit whispering: do it.

After six months without handling anything more dangerous than a pitchfork, Robb was a bit out of practice with weapons, but he still knew in his bones that he would be fast enough. Maybe Tywin would be fast too, he didn’t have that evidence one way or another, but the man was thrice Robb’s age and his combat years were mostly behind him, as evidenced by the way he usually commanded battles without entering them. He wouldn’t be as fast as Robb. And fuck, Lannister had just been openly speculating about possibly killing him one day, hadn’t he? And reminding him about the other houses he’d ended? Why shouldn’t Robb strike first, against someone like that? Why wouldn’t he?

The Hand withdrew the knife at an equally leisurely pace, and Robb was very still as he followed it all the way back to his face, where Tywin’s eyes finally met his as he bit the small green fruit off the sharp tip of the blade. “Imported from Dorne,” he said. “Not sure if merchants ever bring these north.”

It felt oddly hard for Robb to breathe. He looked down at the table and realized his grip around his knife’s handle had never even tightened. Casually opening his hand to release it, he traded the knife for a fork and used that to try his first olive. It was briny and oily and fruity and bitter all at once. He washed the taste away with wine, found the air in his throat, and said, “As far as I’m concerned, Dorne can keep them.”

Tywin put his knife back down too. “To each their own. It’s easy to forget to appreciate the little things in life, but an olive is a very little thing, and I think that was the best one I’ve ever had.”

The way he said it told Robb that he had known it too, that Robb would be faster, and he had given him the choice anyway. And Robb had chosen.

Since he knew Tywin knew, he asked, “The least safe olive you’ve ever had, sir?”

The gold-flecked green eyes looked a little brighter, in the way that always meant Tywin thought he’d said something clever. “The most interesting olive.”

And the way he said that told Robb that Lord Lannister had not been entirely certain of which choice he was going to make. Mostly certain, yes. But not entirely. It wouldn't have been interesting if he had already known. 

With the sharp objects back out of play and the decision made, Robb settled back down and returned to something he’d made a mental note of a few minutes ago. “You said ‘for one thing’ before, about why I’m so amusing. Does that mean there’s another?”

Tywin paused, and when he spoke, he didn’t answer his question directly. “I never knew your father very well, you know. He holed up in the North so quickly after the war, doubtless to keep his new family away from people like me. Wise man, in his own way. But had he remained in the south, I believe that he would also have amused me, as much as irritated me.”

It didn’t sting as much as it used to for Tywin to mention his father. “For his part, I’m sure that only the irritation would have been returned, my lord.”

Tywin snorted. “Oh yes, I at least knew him well enough to share your certainty on that point.”

Robb stared down into the blood-red pool in his wine goblet before suddenly looking back up. “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding, Lord Lannister. Are you attempting to say that you admired my father?”

“Admiration,” Tywin said, as if he were testing the word. “I confess I do not know the sensation well, but it doesn’t seem right. I said he was a wise man in his own way. He was a foolish man in mine.”

It didn’t seem like he was finished, so Robb bit his tongue, because he wanted to hear the rest before he let that last part start a fight.

“What I do know,” Tywin continued after a few seconds of staring into his own cup, “is that as it stands, I am surrounded by sycophants and cowards. Eddard Stark seemed utterly incapable of becoming either, and so do you.”

“And that is…”

Lannister raised his glass, approximating a toast. “Amusing.”

“Hm,” Robb said, and he tore a piece of bread and dipped it in oil. That sounded a lot like admiration to him, but he wasn’t going to insist. “It’s all a bit above my head, my lord, but then, I am only a northern simpleton.”

“Since we’ve established that you’re not going to be me, I suppose you can be whoever you’d like,” Tywin said. “It’s no great mystery whose face is in your head when I say that, but for your own sake, do at least try to be a little smarter than the original.” Then he pushed one of his stacks of books down the table. “Don’t touch until your hands are clean. Choose at least one to take back down with you. They’re mostly history, economics, or political theory. You could use the education.”

“One small problem, my lord,” Robb said, wiping his hands on an elaborately embroidered napkin. “Since my father was so stupid, he never taught me how to read.”

The corner of Lord Lannister’s mouth twitched a bit again. He picked up the book he had been holding when Robb arrived, but before he flipped back to his page, he said, “Not only has your point been taken, but that little witticism belonged to the good half. You’ve earned another week of life.”

“I don’t actually need you to promise not to kill me,” Robb said. “It might make this whole thing a little dull.”

Tywin inclined his head, like he understood perfectly. “I don’t make promises like that.”

Robb pushed the small dish of olives toward him, either like a peace offering or the opposite; he hadn’t bothered to decide which. “No promises from me either.”

Lord Tywin shrugged, put the lid on the dish, and found his page.

Although Robb understood he was being dismissed, he hesitated for a moment before getting up. “Why am I really here? I’m guessing you won’t be quite as candid about that.”

“Seems to me like you’re here to take care of horses and read books,” Tywin drawled.

A neighbor, Robb presumed, not a twin. “Then why am I only getting the books now? I’ve evidently only been doing half my job for months.”

“You've been a little preoccupied, but it’s the first time you’ve been curious enough to come up without being told to,” Tywin replied without looking at him, his eyes already traveling back and forth across the words on the page. “I only lend books to curious people. Now go away.”

Robb didn’t bother examining the titles or contents of the tomes he’d been offered. He said, “My lord,” and took the whole stack of them, plus an apple from the fruit bowl. And he didn’t think he would ever forget the astonished expression on the guard’s face when he carried it all out the door.

Notes:

The Rains of Castamere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlkgbwmN9mQ
A ballad about the rebellion and subsequent destruction of House Reyne by a younger Tywin Lannister.

Chapter 19: The Merit of a Man

A few days after the reunion with Sansa, a new visitor showed up at the stables.

“Robb Stark, as I live and breathe.” Robb had heard that voice before, during King Robert’s visit to Winterfell with his royal entourage. He turned away from the mare he’d been brushing and looked down to find the voice’s owner. “Don’t tell me the rumors are true and my father is actually treating you well. I’ll be so jealous.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Lord Tyrion,” Robb replied smoothly. “While I may not be kenneled with the hounds, I merely neglected to inform my sister about all the threats and lectures, and obviously the beatings.”

Tyrion looked at him as if he were deciding whether or not that was a joke. Robb wasn’t sure what conclusion he had come to when the dwarf said, “Very kind of you. Then I will keep the secret too. Although I don’t know that it does much for the jealousy. As a boy I sometimes wished my father would hit me, because at least that would have meant he wasn’t too disgusted to touch me.” Then he looked a bit chagrined. “Not that I’ve come here to regale you with the sob stories of a poor little rich Lannister, suffering the great indignity of a nonviolent upbringing. How deeply thoughtless of me.”

Why was he here? Robb glanced around and realized that his guard was all the way on the other side of the stable, still keeping an eye on them, but from a vantage point that must have been out of earshot. Tyrion noticed that he noticed and said, “Seems he’s found something shiny over there that needs his attention, and the chances are looking positive that he’ll find another shiny thing when I leave. Even though he was a bit difficult and refused to wait outside. My father does vet them at least that thoroughly, I suppose.”

Now Robb’s curiosity was definitely piqued. “What can I do for you, my lord?”

“You can start by not calling me ‘my lord,’” Tyrion countered. “I’ve only come so I could look you in the eye and tell you myself.” He paused, looking expectant. “Come on, Stark. That was the part where you were supposed to offer to take a knee or fetch me a bale of hay, so we’d be at eye level.”

“I can see your eyes from here,” Robb said matter-of-factly. “Tell me what?”

The dwarf seemed pleased by his answer. “That my young lady wife will come to no harm at my hands, and no further harm at anyone else’s,” he said. Then, a little more quietly, “And that I have no plans to make you an uncle. It appears that I just can’t seem to drum up any interest in causing my venerable name to live on through the ages, even if it does get me the bloody Rock. Figured it was worth bribing the guard not to hear that part.”

Robb didn’t have to examine his face very closely to deduce whether he was being genuine. Truth shone through his scarred features as clearly as the moon in a cloudless night sky.

Extending a hand, Robb asked, “Is there a joke I’m missing here about handshake level?”

Tyrion reached up and grasped it firmly. “It’s no laughing matter that you’ve made me throw out my shoulder to strike this accord, you monster. By the gods, I hate the tall.” But he seemed to still be in good enough condition afterward to fish two flasks from his tunic pockets. “These were originally both going to be for me, but I never seal a pact without sharing a drink.”

Robb accepted the one offered to him, tapped it against Tyrion’s, and took a swig. It was something much stronger than wine, and his swallow warmed him all the way down. “What is it?”

“The finest whiskey in the Red Keep,” Tyrion said. “And I would know. I’ve conducted exhaustive research. This one has been aging in an oak barrel in the cellar since before you were born.”

Sipping it again and considering that he wouldn’t know the difference, Robb asked, “Do you still honor the pacts you make over shit whiskey?”

Tyrion clinked the top of his flask against the bottom of Robb’s. “Never. I see you have the measure of me already.”

“I judge the worth of my pacts by the merit of the man I make them with, not the value of the liquor,” Robb said. “So I hope you don’t make me regret drinking.”

“I couldn’t do that to you,” Tyrion assured him. “It would be the greatest shame of my very shameful life to make any soul regret drinking this.” He peered around the stables. “I actually might have accepted the haybale, if you’d offered. Presumably you have them here? It strikes me that there might be a certain rural sort of charm in perching atop one to finish my flask.”

“My apologies,” Robb said. “I’m being a terrible host.” He carried one out from the feed supply room and set it down against the wall.

Tyrion clambered onto it and settled with his back against the wall, looking as though perhaps the actual experience was less charming than his vision had been. “It must be quite a shock to the system,” he commented, looking back at Robb. “From a king to a stablehand.”

“Can I be honest?” Robb asked.

“Don’t know,” Tyrion said. “Given who raised you, I’m guessing you can. What honest thing do you want to say?”

Robb dragged over a stool, sat, drank, and said, “Fuck being a king.”

“It does seem like an awfully overrated thing, and the survival rates are rather bleak,” Tyrion agreed. “I came about as close as I ever wanted during my moment in the sun as the acting Hand, while you were prancing about in the west being immensely frustrating to the official one.” He tilted his head a bit and pointed at Robb’s face. “Not the most forgiving man, in my experience. Which battle did he give you the black eye for?”

Resolving never to fight Orin again, because he usually healed faster than this, Robb demurred, “Oh, that? It’s only the type of injury one might incur from a bad fall. The stables are so full of hazards.”

“Hm, yes,” Tyrion mused. “Somehow I’d forgotten, that is what all the stories were saying about the Young Wolf. Incredibly clumsy.”

“It’s a dangerous thing, tripping around a battlefield with a sword in your hand,” Robb said.

Tyrion gasped in mock shock. “My dear boy, you could have killed someone.”

Robb laughed. “I’m starting to like you,” he said, “but it’s still worth telling you that if you do hurt my sister, I’ll trip in your direction next.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been involved in that category of incident,” Tyrion said. “People don’t always see me so far down below them when they’re walking. Even so, consider me not only warned, but very afraid.” He tipped over his flask; the last, sad drop fell into the hay. “And still very thirsty.”

“Take mine,” Robb said, holding it out. “If I get too drunk, the horses will sense it, and then they’re liable to kick my head in.”

Tyrion accepted it. “Leave it to me to spare you such a fate. After surviving a whole war and the rise and fall of multiple kings, yourself included, a hoof to the skull in a drunken stupor would make for far too undignified an end.”

“It’s benevolent of you to help me avoid it.”

“It’s benevolent of you to give me more whiskey.”

They sat and talked a little more until the second flask was dry, and then Tyrion hopped off the haybale. “I’m a bit heartened myself, to know there are still men like you in the world,” he said.

Robb got up from his stool. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

The dwarf helpfully handed him a pitchfork. “Without men like you, we’d all be knee-deep in shit.”

“You’re right,” Robb said. “I do have to get back to work.”

“Very disappointed you missed that opportunity,” Tyrion chided. “I set you right up to say that I’d be neck-deep.”

“Why expend my energy, when you’re delivering the lines so admirably on my behalf?” Robb clasped the Imp’s hand again, this time with a smile. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tyrion said. “Seriously, don’t. That barrel wasn’t supposed to be opened for another decade.”

“Maybe I can rest even easier tonight, now that I have that little piece of blackmail,” Robb suggested.

“Goodness.” Tyrion put a hand on his heart. “First the death threats, now the blackmail. I suppose you’re technically my brother-in-law now, but don’t start sounding too much like the rest of my family, please. The crest on your uniform really doesn’t suit you.”

“Does it suit you?” Robb asked.

Despite half a lifetime of practice holding his liquor, Tyrion stumbled just a bit on his way out of the stable. “Still deciding.” He flipped a coin to the guard, who was sauntering back over now, close enough for Robb to see that the first shiny thing was a flask matching the other two, poking out of his pocket. He must have at least had enough sense not to drink it on the job.

“Risky game you’re playing,” Robb commented, once Tyrion had gone. “I could tell him.”

The guard put his hands up in mock-surrender. “Tell him that his own son visited the stables and I watched you the whole time? I beg of you, don’t.”

“What if he’d poisoned my flask?”

“Then you would successfully be dead if left to your own devices, because you didn’t even make him switch before you drank,” the guard said, raising his eyebrows. “I didn’t accept one or let him in until he’d emptied his pockets and taken a swallow from all three of them himself.”

“You don’t mean you really thought Lord Tywin’s own son might be capable of poisoning his loyal guard and faithful squire?” Robb asked, feigning horror. He had been confident enough in his read of Tyrion that he hadn’t actually been concerned about a threat to his life—but of course, a guard who trusted people easily wouldn’t have been a very good guard.

The guard snorted. “If there’s any love lost in that family, they’re still searching for it.”

“I suppose I’ve underestimated you,” Robb allowed.

“It’s not my first day,” the guard assured him. “And I’m greedy, not stupid. But if you’d like for me to hover over you like a nursemaid in the future because you miss me too much when I’m far away, you can just say that.”

Robb glared at him. “It’s good whiskey,” he said. “Don’t drink it all at once.” He forked into the haybale and distributed it to the horses.

Chapter 20: Pirates and Kings

Robb’s daily encounters with Tywin had been peaceful, almost friendly in fact, since the evening they hadn’t promised not to kill each other. After an entire week of mutually polite interactions, the Hand asked if Robb had managed to figure out how to read yet, and if so, to come up to the Tower after work and prove it. Thus, battles were replaced with books as the primary subject of Tywin’s periodic evening interrogations.

Reliably, Robb would indeed have opinions on one chapter or another in one book or another, even if it was in a bone-dry economics tome that would have made him claw his eyes out if Maester Luwin had assigned it at Winterfell. He didn’t exactly have a lot of hobbies while he was locked in his room from late afternoon to nightfall, and reading was a nice change of pace: even economics was more interesting than the ceiling. But it was slightly less interesting than watching merchant ships sailing in and out of Blackwater Bay through his window, so he still made time for breaks to do that. Merchant shipping was related to economics too, he figured, and it was good to be well-rounded.

Since his trips upstairs now didn’t involve provoking any trouble for himself first, Robb started to wonder whether that part of the game had ended or just changed. His question was answered on the third night with the books, when he got a little too comfortable and kicked his feet up onto the desk in the middle of a line of questioning he was finding very easy to navigate. The Hand looked slowly down at his boots, then back at him, and informed him that he had three seconds to take them down before it was interpreted as a request, whether it was one or not. Robb nearly tipped his chair over but managed it in two.

From then on, whenever he spent an evening in the Tower, his tangential goal was usually just to get one threat, for the edge-walking thrill of it, and leave it there. But his bad nights did still haunt him from time to time, even if they were growing more sporadic now—and so on the days when he was all dark circles and sharp edges, full of dreams soaked in blood and fires ablaze with fury and oceans churning with grief and thoughts shrouded in the fog that whispered itsyourfaultitsyourfaultitsyourfault, he went upstairs and didn’t, or couldn’t, leave it there. Peace didn’t even feel like an option when he was like that; it never had.

When those moods took him now, Robb tried to restrain himself for as long as he could. And once he couldn’t anymore, he inevitably wound up shoving right through Lord Tywin’s warnings until he found himself getting a rather more literal sort of shove, taking an awfully up-close-and-personal look at whatever book was sitting on the desk, seething through a brief, ironic scolding about respectful conduct, and being sternly knocked back into place on the wrong side of a sword belt. So the game was still afoot when he needed to play it.

“Next time you’ll kill me, right?” he asked sometimes now, once his head was straightened out and he’d been pushed back into his terribly uncomfortable chair, with the flames relocated from his mind and burning him elsewhere—because the Hand could certainly never be accused of dealing gently with insubordinate squires, even when the insubordination was mostly an artifice and the squire wasn’t a squire.

“Probably,” Tywin would say, and then something like, “Since you’ve managed to cling to life yet again this time, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to hear what you thought about chapter four.”

Once the chapter four of the day had been duly scrutinized and he was back in his room for the night, Robb didn’t spend his time shedding tears. Instead, he started doing the same thing he’d often tried to do in his younger years after he’d been corrected by his father. He concentrated hard on the mistakes he’d made and the flaws within himself that had led to their making. He let himself feel the red thrum of pain pulsing in sync with his heartbeat, let it clear him and focus him, let it tell him: You can be better. And he listened to what it said.

 

The most memorable conversation happened about a month into the new normal, on one of the peaceful days, and it started with pirates.

Lord Lannister inquired how far he’d gotten in the economics book, before asking, “How might piracy on the Narrow Sea affect the economy of the Reach?”

“Trick question,” Robb replied. “The Reach doesn’t border the Narrow Sea or export its goods beyond the continent.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Tywin agreed. “But I asked what I asked.”

None of Robb’s books had mentioned pirates, but by now he had figured out that Tywin preferred asking him questions about things the books didn’t say, so he couldn’t just spit out memorized answers and call it a day. “Can I have a moment to think about it, sir?”

“Several moments, if you’d like,” Tywin offered. “Believe it or not, taking time to think before you speak is an activity that many people consider sensible.”

Since it was one of the peaceful days, Robb didn’t make a rude gesture at him. That sort of behavior wasn’t eligible for warnings. He’d located that particular boundary months ago, the first and so far only time he’d managed to earn a second dose of the strap in the same night. Looking deeply unimpressed, Tywin had advised Robb that if he was going to be rude, he should at least attempt to be clever about it, and the resulting incentive to be clever had left his arse throbbing for two days. So tonight, instead of using his hand for an obscene purpose, he abstractedly rubbed it along his jaw and only thought about it.

Then he switched to thinking about the chapters he’d just read on production and trade, and the flags on the ships he’d seen in the bay, and eventually responded, “The Reach is the agricultural heartland of Westeros, but a lot of the same goods are produced in Essos. And Essos is a larger continent with a greater abundance of fertile land, which would allow foreign producers to flood the market here if they had a reliable transport system. Piracy would obviously deter Essosi merchants from exporting as many of their goods across the sea, thereby allowing the Reach to maintain more of a domestic monopoly on staples like grain and command higher prices for them.”

“A fascinating theory,” Tywin said, as if he’d simply never thought of it before. “I wonder if that’s why the Stepstone islands seem to be swarming with enclaves of mercenaries flying Free Cities flags on their ships…yet speaking fluent Common, in Westerosi accents, instead of Low Valyrian.”

That was interesting enough on its own, but Robb wasn’t done pondering the issue yet. “It wouldn’t just be about the money, though. The current system also gives the Reach greater influence over the Crownlands and the realm as a whole, because controlling a kingdom’s food supply looks suspiciously similar to controlling a kingdom.”

“The Reach is arguably the most powerful of the Seven Kingdoms,” Tywin said, sounding approving of how cleanly the logic had been followed. Then he paused for a little while, glancing at Robb and seeming to weigh a question to himself, and finally said, “Maybe that’s why I would hypothetically be willing to leave the crime unprosecuted, were I to come to an awareness that Lady Olenna Tyrell had taken the necessary measures to protect her granddaughter from a marriage to an unstable sadist of a king, and the rest of the realm from his whims.”

To his credit, Robb had only been speechless for a few moments. Then he said, “It’s a good thing it’s only hypothetical, my lord. If you’d given me real information like that, you genuinely might have to kill me.”

“It’s not like there are many people you can tell, but keep your mouth shut or you could hypothetically be right,” Tywin told him.

“I suppose I can keep it out of the stablehands’ gossip circuit, since it’s only baseless conjecture,” Robb said.

"I'd also prefer not to hear that my new daughter-in-law has been making a habit of bringing up murder to people over teatime."

He'd have liked to tell Sansa, but it would be safer if she didn't know, and they were both careful about the kinds of things they said on afternoons together in case other ears picked up the whispers. This month, he'd asked how much she and Tyrion generally told each other, and she said that while she trusted him more than most people at King's Landing, that wasn't saying much. They lived cordial but mostly separate lives and didn't share much more than vague details of their days at dinner. (She'd also told Robb that it had been nicer to see Margaery marry Tommen, but that overall the wedding hadn't been as fun as the last one.)

“Does anyone else already know—I mean, would anyone, theoretically?” he asked Lord Tywin. 

Tywin’s fingers tapped his desk. “The Tyrells seem to understand that if I managed to be convinced of such a hypothesis, I would be far more interested in negotiating excessively favorable trade deals for King’s Landing and Lannisport than in arranging a murder trial for our beloved young Queen Margaery’s grandmother. Highgarden would also grasp, in such a case, that as long as our alliance remained mutually beneficial and bloodless moving forward, the Crown would see no need to send the royal fleet to sea on an anti-piracy crusade to help establish new, safer shipping lanes from Essos.”

Robb couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s all connected, is it?”

“Most things are, in one way or another.” Tywin looked out the window at the bay. “Of course, if my daughter happened to hear the stable gossip, it wouldn’t matter if I shipped her across the ocean. She wouldn’t take a moment of rest until she’d started another bloody war, and then more people would die in the name of a king who didn’t do anything to earn the lives he got the first time.”

“Then you’ve successfully convinced me about the virtues of discretion,” Robb said, but side-eyed him. “Why do I get the sense that I’m sitting across from the actual king of the realm right now?”

“I’d much rather do the work than wear the crown,” Tywin said, glancing at his nearest stack of papers. “The people seem to like how it looks on King Tommen. Not sure if His Grace is particularly cut out for the business end of things, but he does possess arguably the most important trait in a king.”

Robb tilted his head. “Being related to you, my lord?”

Tywin snorted. “Being a good listener, boy.”

“Do you have any more economics books?” Robb asked. “I never realized it could lead to such riveting discussions.”

The Hand gestured at his bookshelves. “If your mouth is closed, the library is open.”

“What mouth?” Robb asked. “Don’t have one.”

“Astounding,” Tywin commented. “You are learning to lie. Couldn’t have been me who taught you such a thing.”

Robb crossed his arms. “Maybe we’re both trying something new. You actually think it’s fun being so honest with me, don’t you?”

“I would say it isn’t,” Tywin answered, the glint in his eyes betraying the answer before he said the second half of the sentence, “but I suppose that wouldn’t be the truth, and I’m too committed to the experiment to pause it now.”

“That’s good to hear,” Robb said. “Does that mean you might also tell me what the North has been up to lately?”

“Nothing very astonishing,” Tywin replied. “Not causing any trouble. Probably busy banging sticks together trying to make fire or something.”

“The North is really dragging down the average intelligence of the kingdoms, according to you,” Robb groused. “Should have just let me fucking secede with it.”

Lord Lannister examined the back of his hand, in a way that managed to imply that it hadn’t slapped any mouthy young separatists in a while and wasn’t otherwise occupied at the moment. “You can either be intelligent right now, or you can curse at me and say some more traitorous things, but not both.”

With his threat quota successfully filled for the day and no interest in seeing this one through to its natural conclusion, Robb cooperatively retreated to safer ground and asked more questions about the pirates who had managed to find their way from the rose gardens to the high seas.

Notes:

Shoutout to scifipunk, who left a comment inspiring me to think more deeply about how Tywin might investigate Joffrey’s death and helped pull this chapter together!

Chapter 21: The Depths of the Ocean

One morning, Lord Tywin was gone a little longer than usual on his sunrise ride. When he came back, Robb took his horse, but he didn’t miss it when Tywin stepped aside with his guard. The two of them spoke briefly, and Robb felt them look at him once, but he tried to appear disinterested since he hadn’t been addressed directly. If the Hand had wanted him to hear what he was saying, he would have said it right to him. And Robb wasn’t about to butt in and ask, since he’d probably only come away with no answers and his ears ringing about manners, and he wasn’t in a limit-pushing sort of mood.

Not with Tywin himself, at least. Robb’s restraint on his curiosity could only extend so far. As soon as Lannister was gone, he asked the guard, “What was that about?”

The guard sighed, probably already understanding that Robb was about to be a dog with a bone. “Nothing.”

Robb was, indeed, clamped onto the bone. “Thing is, I’ve gotten the sense he doesn’t like to waste his breath saying nothing.”

“It’s not about you.”

“It is about me, because you looked at me.”

Rubbing his temples, the guard tried again. “He’ll tell you later.”

“Tell me what?”

“Don’t know. Didn’t tell me. I’m just supposed to bring you up.”

It wasn’t supposed to be an evening of literary cross-examination, because that was normally just once or twice a week, and it had already been twice. And again, if this was a normal occasion, Tywin would have just said so. This must be about something else—and he hadn’t wanted to bother putting Robb on edge about it all day, for all the good that had done. “Did it seem like something good or bad?”

“Haven’t a clue,” the guard said. “Probably bad. He wasn’t his normal jovial self. It’s so rare to see Lord Tywin without a smile on his face.”

“What’s it like being so useless?” Robb inquired next.

“It’s nice.”

Robb huffed. “Fine, so he’ll tell me later. When’s later?”

“Later,” the guard said, finally annoyed. “Maybe if you talk less and work more, later will be sooner.”

He had struck upon just the trick to take the bone. Robb shut up.

By the time the sun was past its zenith with mid-afternoon approaching, he was finished, and looked demandingly at the guard as he gestured around at the spotless stables, polished tack, and content horses.

“Look at that,” the guard said. “Must be later.”

When they knocked at the top of the Tower and Robb went inside, Tywin didn’t comment on it being too early. He also didn’t bother prolonging the suspense. The door closed behind the guard, and the Hand said, “I have news that might be difficult for you to hear, boy. Sit down if you want to.”

Going slightly rigid, Robb remained standing. Bad news after all, then. “I don’t.”

“Suit yourself,” Tywin said. “There was a raven from Faircastle in the rookery this morning. Theon Greyjoy is dead.”

Robb felt his eyes go blank and cold, and the same empty, dark chill soaked all the way through his head to the back of his skull. “How?” he heard himself ask.

“I don’t believe Greyjoy’s father was as impressed as he’d hoped with his little stunt at Winterfell,” Tywin answered, and Robb felt so numb he didn’t even wince. “So the boy took his ship back to sea and has been reaving with his men in coastal villages for months, trying to prove he does bleed saltwater and iron I suppose. It must have worked well enough to get him command of a small fleet, so he raised the stakes, joined forces with his uncle Euron, and sailed on Fair Isle with a thousand men. The Ironborn have conquered the island several times before and I expect they thought they could do it again. Instead it seems they both discovered that what flowed in their veins was just as red as any man’s when it spilled.”

Fists clenching and unclenching, Robb tried to process the information. “Theon’s blood was mine to spill,” he said finally.

Lord Tywin watched him with an unreadable expression. “House Farman of Faircastle are vassals of mine. I can arrange for them to send his head.”

As much as Robb had wanted to remove Theon’s head himself for what he’d done, the thought of opening that box filled him with a sick dread and grief. They had grown up together. Joked and fought and learned and adventured and went to war together. And to just see him like that—without even the chance to ask him why, or if he regretted it, or to tell him it was for Bran and Rickon as the blade touched his neck…he couldn’t do that.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said woodenly, and he looked away and let himself drift into the icy blackness of his mind for a little while.

“Listen,” Tywin said eventually. “Going forward, I’ve decided to give you limited access to the training yard. The master-at-arms and the guard regiment have already been informed. Live steel is prohibited there in the afternoons, meaning that you will still be prohibited there in the mornings. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Robb said distantly, but he was hearing without listening, the words floating past his brain like a faraway echo.

“Then repeat it back to me.”

“I…” Robb shook himself out of his daze. “What?”

“You can go beat the shit out of the other squires in a regulated format this time,” Tywin repeated, slow and distinct. “In the afternoons. In the training yard. If your work is done.”

Golden light was spilling through the high windows; there were hours before sunset yet. It would be a nice day to fight, and a nice night to cry. Robb breathed in deeply. “Do you think I could go there now, my lord?”

“By all means.”

Robb walked to the door, faintly wondering if he would feel less slow and stiff and disassociated by the time he got down there, but not really caring either way.

“Do try not to bludgeon anyone to death with the sparring swords,” Tywin requested. “And if Ser Aron says you’re done, then you’re done. Repeat it back.”

“No killing,” Robb said dimly.

“And?”

“And Ser Aron’s word is law.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

Robb stopped with his hand on the door handle. “If they…”

Lord Tywin hated unfinished sentences, Robb knew that—he said if you weren’t going to finish one then you shouldn’t waste everyone’s time starting it—but just this once, he waited patiently.

Squeezing his eyes closed, Robb thought about the description he’d read of his brothers’ bodies at Winterfell, charred and blackened nearly beyond recognition. He didn’t know if he wanted to finish the words he’d been trying to say.

But they spilled out of him anyway, as if someone else was speaking. “If they still have his body on the island, can you send a raven asking them to throw it in the sea?”

He didn’t know whether Tywin was well-educated on Ironborn burial customs. Theon had not spoken about many things with reverence in all the time Robb had known him, but his tone had always shifted in that direction when he told Robb stories about the Drowned God, “He Who Dwells Beneath the Waves.” And for the love Robb had once borne his brother—and for his sorrow that Theon had been ripped away from his home and his family and his culture at such a tender age while his jailers had flown the banners of the direwolf—he would not see his bones turned to ash or imprisoned in the earth. He would not deny him the afterlife he had described so worshipfully, drinking with his own kind in his deity’s saltwater halls.

Robb could feel Tywin’s eyes on him, but he didn’t turn around to look. The Hand paused for a little while himself, and Robb thought he was going to ask a question he couldn’t answer, like why? or what’s in it for you?

Instead, Tywin just said, “Yes.”

Even if the man had liked to be thanked, Robb didn’t think he would have had it in him to express gratitude for something he wasn’t even sure he wanted.

So he left without another word, and asked his waiting guard, “Can you show me where the training yard is?”

“Ah, right, he did tell me that part earlier,” the guard said. “Must have slipped my mind to mention it.” Then, he must have been a little curious about the other part too, because he asked, “Did you get good or bad news?”

“I’m not actually sure,” Robb replied. “Bad, I guess.”

“Well,” the guard said, and didn’t even try to pry further to pay Robb back for earlier. “Come on, then, let’s find you a proper fight with the lads. Better them than me.” This man wasn’t either of the guards Robb had fought, but the next time he’d been on duty with him after that day, he had told Robb that he’d found the story very funny, especially the part where Robb had apologized and then promptly started bleeding again. For the rest of that shift, he had pretended to flinch or cower away whenever Robb made too sudden of a move. Robb had liked the game and made a lot of sudden moves.

Today, Robb looked at him and thought to ask, “What’s your name?”

“Same as all the others,” the guard answered. “‘Guard.’”

“Useless,” Robb grumbled.

“That’s my first name.”

“Useless Guard,” Robb repeated, clinging onto enough of himself to return the banter, stepping back from the waves of grief he felt lapping at his ankles, not letting himself fall in the ocean just yet. “It’s a pretty name. Your parents must be proud you’ve lived up to it.”

They found their way to the training yard, which was only a couple of courtyards away from the stables, and Useless Guard double-checked with Ser Aron Santagar that it was all right for him to be there. It was; the King's Hand had come by about it personally.

When Robb showed up a little more bruised to deliver Tywin’s horse every morning for the next few days, and the stables became a little more disheveled, Lannister didn’t say a word about either.

And in the afternoons—even though the sparring blades were inelegant, unwieldy things with blunted edges, nothing like the castle-forged steel Robb had trained with in the Winterfell yards and carried into battle—it felt good to hold a sword again.

Chapter 22: Fighting Dirty

One day, in his second week of it, Robb arrived to the yard in the late afternoon and saw Jeryd there for the first time. The boy had been speaking with the master-at-arms by the fence, but Robb saw his eyes flick over when he came through the gate. It was only for a moment, and then they slid back to Ser Aron’s face as Jeryd waited respectfully for him to finish whatever he was saying.

When he’d wrapped it up, Aron gave Jeryd a brief clap on the arm and sent him back into the yard. The squire came right over to Robb, his shoulders held straight with his normal casual confidence. “Care for a match, Stark?”

Robb had already picked out his sword from the bin. It was the one he’d discovered had the best balance to it, so he had memorized the pattern of its scuffs and scrapes so he could use it again. Jeryd was carrying a slightly lighter, narrower, one-handed version, so Robb assumed his fighting style probably didn’t involve a lot of brute force. “I would. You aren’t afraid to fight me anymore?” He was thinking back to the day Jeryd had hopped the stableyard fences to get away from him.

Jeryd sniffed conceitedly. “I would have fought you any day, any time. If I had been allowed. And now I am.”

That made a lot more sense. Robb hadn’t pegged Jeryd for a coward. But a boy who followed the rules? He was unquestionably that. And if Robb told him so, he didn’t even think Jeryd would deny it. The boy would only say something highly irritating about how, well, rules are there for a reason, and he couldn’t help it if Robb was too stupid to see what the reasons were, and so on.

The things that Imaginary Jeryd was saying were pissing him off enough, so he didn’t give Real Jeryd a chance to do better. “Let’s see what you’ve got, then.” They walked out into the sparring area and the match began.

As Robb had anticipated, Jeryd leaned heavily on his agility to fight, darting in fast to make his strikes and spinning away whenever a blow came his direction. Robb had to be careful not to overextend himself, because if he used too much power in a single strike that didn’t land, he’d open himself up to a counterattack before he could recover, and Jeryd was too skilled to let opportunities like that slip.

It was like a game: they were circling one another, both landing hits, watching how their opponent reacted, trying to predict each other’s next move. Alert. Locked in. Slow in the thick tension of planning an attack and then fast in sudden flurries of motion to execute it. Every breath Robb took practically glowed in his lungs, bright and warm and blissful. This fight didn’t feel good in the way that violence felt good. It felt good in the way that facing a challenge did.

The match went on for a little while this way: neither winning, neither yielding. Until, quick as lightning striking from a summer stormcloud, Jeryd feinted to Robb’s left, then tossed his sword into his other hand and struck hard to the right. But his eyes had betrayed him—he’d been looking at Robb’s right side, not his left, so Robb hadn’t even been distracted by his sword maneuver. He dodged left to avoid Jeryd’s blow, then struck his own before the boy could pull back into a defensive position. He was already off balance trying to recover, so Robb stepped in with a swift boot to sweep out one of Jeryd’s ankles, simultaneously disarming him with a rap to his wrist and swift twist of their blades. His opponent stumbled backwards and landed in the dirt at the same time as his sword.

Robb thought that Jeryd would immediately hop to his feet, with narrow eyes and a masked face to bely his wounded pride, and say something pretentious to brush it off as a fluke.

The boy surprised him. He stayed where he’d fallen for a moment, with a curious expression. His eyes darted to Robb’s sword hand and then his foot, as if he were replaying the move.

When Robb offered him a hand, he was sure he wouldn’t take it. Jeryd must have suffered a head injury earlier in the day, though, because he did. He helped himself up, brushed himself off, shook out his sore wrist, and asked, “Can you teach me what you did there?”

Robb looked at him suspiciously. “Feeling all right, Serrett?”

“Never better,” Jeryd said smoothly, sounding like himself again. “It’s just that that move usually works for me. You countered it the first time I even tried it on you, and I’ve decided that offends me. Teach me or don’t, but I’ll learn either way.”

“Tossing the sword was a nice trick,” Robb said. “Can you wield it equally well with either hand?”

“Not quite equally,” Jeryd said. “But better, ever since the master-at-arms at Casterly Rock spent a month tying my dominant hand behind my back before he’d let me fight. I lost a lot of matches that month.”

“Bet you hated that.”

“I hated it less than I hate being incompetent. So what’s your decision? Am I learning the hard way or the harder way?”

With a shrug, Robb took his stance. “Come at me again. We’ll do it slow and see if you can figure it out.”

Jeryd was absolutely filthy an hour later, but two hours later he had developed a counter to the counter and Robb was filthy too.

 

Sometimes it’d be Garrick in the yard instead, and while the younger boy would certainly never ask him for lessons, he did seem darkly thrilled by the new opportunity to clobber the living shit out of Robb in a sanctioned setting.

Robb always fought back hard enough so that Garrick wouldn’t feel condescended to, but if his reactions were a bit slower and his own hits a bit lighter during their matches, who was to know? He was intimately familiar with the helpless rage of losing brothers, and this boy was so young to be carrying that pain. Robb didn’t mind absorbing some of it for him. In fact, he really couldn’t think of a more ideal person to do it.

It occurred to him once, in the middle of a fight, that in a way he was Garrick’s Theon, and the thought shook him. Perhaps sensing his moment of distraction, the boy swung his sword against Robb’s head hard enough to make his ear ring, and Robb stumbled back a bit and thought, well, fair enough.

Ser Aron apparently didn’t agree. The master-at-arms had been a bit wary of Robb since he’d started coming to the yard, and he could often feel Aron observing his fights a little more closely to ensure they were abiding by the rules, none of which happened to sanction blunt force skull trauma. Today, the yardmaster barked “Lydden!”, freezing the boy in place just seconds before he’d finished winding up to give Robb a harmonizing pitch in the other ear. Aron strode over, yanked Garrick’s sword out of his hand, and sent him to the sidelines with a stern reprimand and an order to cool off.

After the young squire stomped off, rubbing at the back of his head, which had just been roundly cuffed itself, the knight gave Robb an appraising look. He seemed as though he were about to say something to him too, then changed his mind and turned away. To Robb, the look had said enough: I’ve seen you fight the others, and I know you’re being kind. Actually, the turn away had said something too: that he could keep being kind, if he wanted to, and Aron wouldn’t say anything about it.

Next time he was in the yard, Ser Aron beckoned him over and gave him some tips on his defensive footwork. Robb had always been better at aggressive footwork and found it to be welcome advice.

 

The days dragged on a little less with Robb’s mind and body both so busy. Weeks slipped past in a flurry of working, fighting, studying, and visiting the Tower for more evenings of being drilled either on military strategy or his thoughts about the contents (or non-contents) of the books he’d been lent. And that was all those evenings were now. Ever since he’d been allowed in the training yard, Robb had been working his issues out there instead and had dispensed with his traditional methods of provocation. He wondered if maybe that had been the point.

There had been a resurgence in the frequency of his bad days after the news about Theon, but he didn’t just go to the yard when he was twisted up in knots with all the guilt and fury and grief and shame. He went on his good days, too, just to train. And the difference must have been obvious, because next time Ser Aron wanted a word with him, he said, “I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell the Lydden boy. You can fight with your anger if you want to, within reason. But you’re much better at it when you’re calm.”

“Yes, sir,” Robb said. “Thank you.” Then he craned his head up at the Red Keep towering above them and wondered something. “If you don’t mind my asking, Ser Aron, did you know my father, when he was here?”

“I met him a time or two, in the normal course of business,” Aron answered. “I won’t pretend I knew Lord Eddard personally, and I’m not here to talk you out of being angry. It’s just worth telling you that it’s not doing you any favors.”

“Understood,” Robb replied, and supposed that he was right.

After that, whenever he arrived with the telltale set to his jaw and the red fog behind his eyes, the master-at-arms began to suggest, but not demand, that he take some laps around the track that looped the practice yard between the outer fence and the inner one. When Robb realized that the running helped almost as much as the fighting, he started with the laps every time.

On the bad days, he ran until it hurt, and he let the burning in his lungs and muscles be the thing that told him you can be better, and then he fought better because he didn’t need the fight to be the thing that hurt anymore. On the good days, he just ran because he found the speed and motion exhilarating, and even if he was only going around in circles, something about it felt like moving forward.

“If you’re not going to kill me, what are you going to do with me?” he asked Tywin before leaving his study one evening.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to kill you,” the Hand replied mildly.

“I’m not stupid,” Robb protested.

Lord Lannister was scanning his shelves and picking out some new books. “I didn’t say you were.”

“You aren’t just spending a couple of spare evenings a week trying to make me a well-educated prisoner for your own entertainment.”

Apparently satisfied with his selections, Tywin turned away from the shelf and cast him a glance. “Aren’t I?”

Robb’s eyes narrowed. “What happened to your honesty experiment?”

Wholly unfazed, the Lord Hand pushed the stack of tomes into his not-quite-a-squire’s arms and said, “Tell me where I’ve lied.”

But Robb couldn’t manage to find the lie after all. “Has anyone ever told you how irritating you are, sir?” he asked, creeping up within spitting distance of the edge, because he certainly hadn’t abandoned that part of the habit and somehow didn’t get the sense Tywin really wanted him to.

“Not quite so directly,” Tywin answered, and it seemed like Robb had correctly anticipated the amusement in his tone. “Did you want to expand, or will that be all?”

“That’s all,” Robb said, and was ushered out the door. “For now.”

 

The third time he saw Sansa, they finally had a short, whispered conversation about what was going on. Robb hadn’t told her a lot about his situation yet, since he hadn’t been entirely sure what to make of it or how to explain it—and he still wasn’t, but he didn’t want to keep it all to himself anymore. While he was determined not to tell her anything that might put her at risk or force her to unnecessarily carry any of his burdens, he figured there were at least some things he could safely share.

“Listen,” he said, dropping his voice low after she’d caught him up on the various goings-on of her month. “I want to tell you something. But first, if anyone asks about me, even Tyrion, it might be best for them to think I’m still essentially just a stablehand, and it’s just because Lord Tywin likes the image of a former king mucking out his horse stalls.”

Sansa’s eyes widened. “What do you mean? You aren’t a stablehand?”

“I mean, I am,” Robb said. “But there’s more to it. He’s letting me train with the Red Keep’s other squires now, and he’s educating me. I think he wants to make me useful for something more than carrying hay around.”

An edge of concern entered her hushed tone. “Useful how?”

Robb shrugged. “He won’t tell me. And I’m not convinced that I want to be useful in whatever way he’s thinking. I’m definitely not going to do anything that doesn’t feel right to me. But so far he hasn’t tried to make me.”

“That’s good.” His sister squeezed his hand, still looking serious. “I know you’re smart, but I also know how stubborn you can be. Please don’t be so stubborn that it gets you killed.”

“He definitely doesn’t want to kill me,” Robb said, leaving out the part where both he and Tywin often suggested precisely that, because Sansa probably wouldn’t appreciate the nature of that joke. “It’s like…of course I don’t trust him, but he also isn’t actively giving me a lot of reasons to distrust him. That probably doesn’t make any sense, especially because this is Tywin fucking Lannister we’re talking about, but I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“It doesn’t make sense, but I do understand what you mean,” Sansa whispered back. “I think I feel the same way about Tyrion, because he is being kind to me, but he’s also a Lannister, so it’s like I’m just waiting to see whether or not it lasts. But at least it’s an improvement. Most people I’ve met here have given me reasons to distrust them pretty quickly.”

“Father did always call this city a rats’ nest,” Robb said.

“Rats in fancy clothes,” Sansa agreed. “Just be careful. You’re not with a rat, you’re with a lion.”

“I know,” Robb said. He didn’t tell her: sometimes I stick my hand in the lion’s mouth, but don’t worry, because I usually yank it back before he bites, and it used to be my head I was trying to put between the jaws—and in any case, it’s fine, because I kind of deserve to be bitten, and the lion likes the game. Somehow he didn’t think any of that would be reassuring. “Right now, I’m just taking things day by day. I like that I can have some proper spars again, like Jon and I used to. And Lord Tywin has been lending me some interesting books.”

“I’m taking it day by day too.” Sansa paused, then looked a little mischievous. “Imagine Maester Luwin hearing that you’re excited about reading books.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Robb returned to a more normal tone and said, “Turns out all he would have had to do is lock me in a room with nothing else to entertain me.”

“Doubt it,” Sansa shot back, not whispering anymore either. “You, sitting still in a locked room? Back then you’d have kicked down the door.”

Robb pretended to glare at her. “When did you get funny, little sister?”

Sansa slid down onto the floor in a cascade of skirts and put her hand against her forehead like a woebegone damsel. “Turns out, all you have to do is lock me in a castle with nothing else to keep me sane…”

 

After the two of them had had a few more chance encounters and satisfying swordfights, Jeryd started taking occasional detours on his way to the training yard to stop by the stables, where he’d criticize Robb for being slow and incompetent, and then help him with the work so they could go together. The matches did seem to be especially good after they’d spent an hour or two riling each other up with some verbal sparring first.

On those days, Jeryd typically joined him in the pre-fight run as well, which invariably made it turn into a race. To Robb’s chagrin, the other boy usually won those, which didn't help stem the flow of comments about his slowness.

In the aftermath of one such race, Robb finally got fed up with the remarks and invited Jeryd to take the same amount of time off from training as he had, and they could see who was slow after that. When Jeryd disdainfully declined that fair and logical offer (since he wouldn’t be stupid enough to lose a war and be taken prisoner, so the very idea was unfathomably irrelevant), they entered the yard and Robb made it his sole mission to knock him down as often as possible. After the sixth or seventh time he'd done it, Jeryd left his sword on the ground and tackled Robb's legs. For equality’s sake, Robb tossed his own sword away on the way down.

They grappled in the dirt until Ser Aron came over and looked down at them with folded arms. “Just give me five minutes, sir,” Jeryd said through gritted teeth, trying to pin Robb's wrists.

“Give me four minutes,” Robb requested, because he wasn't quite so slow as to need five, and he swung his leg around Jeryd's back, using the momentum to roll them both over and flip his opponent onto the ground instead.

Ser Aron gave them ten and then told them to wrap it up. When they stopped wrestling, Robb flopped onto his back to catch his breath, and said, “Fuck.”

Jeryd bounced right to his feet. “What's the matter? Tired?” His eyes had a gleam in them and Robb knew what was next.

“Don't say it,” he warned him.

The boy offered him a hand in the most uppity way Robb had ever seen. “Would you say you’re getting up a little…slowly?”

Robb took it and pulled him back down into the dust. Then he got up, held out his own hand, and said, “Pay attention. This is how to offer someone a hand up without the attitude.”

Jeryd took it like a perfect gentleman, hauled himself up, and said, “This is how to accept it without the violence.”

“I haven't even begun to show you violence,” Robb informed him.

Brushing himself off, Jeryd retrieved both of their swords and handed Robb’s to him hilt-first. “I’d be so frightened if I couldn't outrun you.”

Perhaps sensing that the situation would be taking them both back to the ground in short order, Ser Aron gave them some forms to practice that didn't involve any more knocking down.

When Jeryd poked his head into the stable again the very next afternoon, Robb groaned. “You don’t want to fight someone else today?”

“I like fighting you,” Jeryd said, sounding remarkably cheerful for a boy to whom that did not seem like a very natural sensation. Especially since what he said next was, “My win rate against you is abysmal.”

Robb chucked a horse brush at his head. “Only a few left to groom. I saved the one that bites for you, in case you had the nerve to show your face.”

Jeryd caught it. “Thoughtful of you. The pain will only make me stronger.”

“I’ll make you very strong this afternoon,” Robb promised, and swiftly ducked the brush when it came hurtling back towards him.

Their roles were reversed that day: Robb won the race, and Jeryd won the fight, which they both seemed to find equally gratifying as frustrating.

Later, once he was locked back in his room, he sat by his window using every last bit of daylight to read about the ancient civilization of the Rhoynar, which he was finding deeply fascinating. He’d seen this book on the shelf and asked for it, because he didn’t know as much about the Rhoynar as he did the Andals and the First Men, and he’d argued that it would be ridiculous to kill him before he knew about all three. Lord Tywin had graciously agreed to consider allowing him to finish the book unharmed.

When the sky had swallowed the last dregs of the sun, it didn’t take long for Robb’s weary eyes to find a deeper darkness. The next day he woke up, worked, ran, hurt, fought, read, thought about dead people and why they were dead and himself, cried a little, dried his eyes, and went to bed. The day after that, Lord Tywin made him brainstorm some ideas about how the Rhoynar could have set themselves up to more effectively resist the creeping incursion of the Valyrian Freehold and fare better in the wars that had ultimately driven them from their lands a thousand years ago.

And the days kept looking a bit like that, and the weeks kept moving with Robb’s feet and his mind.

Chapter 23: The End of the War

Notes:

Long chapter alert: 6k incoming!

One evening, when Robb was called upstairs, Tywin didn’t want to talk about a book. He took his chair, and Tywin started the conversation. “By now we’ve discussed all of the battles I lost,” he said. “It’s only fair if we talk about the one you did, don’t you think?”

Robb looked out the window; dusk was still settling and a few sunset colors lingered in the sky. He didn’t want to, but he had figured he would be asked about it one day. It had taken longer than he thought, in fact—as if Lord Tywin had been waiting to decide that he was ready for it, or at least capable of it. Whether Robb was (or would ever be) ready or not, he supposed that it was only fair. So then he turned his head back. “Yes, my lord, I do.”

Tywin launched right into it. “You attacked with your entire army, but it was smaller that day.”

“It was right after the Karstarks had left,” Robb explained, although he was certain Tywin already knew that.

“Which was something you knew full well would happen, in advance of causing it,” Tywin said. His next question was just as blunt as that statement had been. “Why did you kill Rickard Karstark?”

“You know why,” Robb replied. “For the deaths of your—of the squires.”

“You can say my nephews,” Tywin told him. “I hadn’t forgotten. The news about them was not expected on our side.”

Robb looked down. “I’m sorry,” he said, because he couldn’t not say it. Because some nights even Martyn and Willem’s faces had taken turns swimming past the backs of his eyelids. And they’d been so young, and defenseless, and it had happened under his watch.

“Let me be clear here,” Tywin said. He didn’t sound annoyed, just businesslike. “I do not need or want you to apologize to me for events that were your doing, much less for events that weren’t. The news was not expected because we understood you as an opponent who would not have executed children who had never seen a battlefield, even if they were named Lannister.”

“No,” Robb confirmed. “They were innocent. And Karstark had no right to take his own justice that way. His own vengeance.”

“Ser Kevan’s sons were fine boys and it was noble of you to want justice done for them.” Lord Tywin folded his hands on the desk. “Now pay attention to my emphasis. I did not ask why you killed Lord Karstark, but why you killed him. Why take his head?”

“He all but forced my hand,” Robb said. “I would have looked weak if I didn’t.”

“Hm,” Tywin mused. “Is it worse to look weaker or to be weaker?”

Robb considered it. “It’s an eloquently positioned question, my lord, but I doubt you’ve ever had to choose between the two yourself.”

“I’m glad you think so, but we aren’t talking about me.”

“Then my answer is that looking weaker is being weaker,” Robb said.

“That would be mine as well, in fact," Lord Tywin agreed. "Which is why I can’t help but consider that there were solutions that might have avoided either outcome. Why not imprison him until the war’s end and then execute him, or let him take the black, to mete out your justice and send the message but retain the loyalty of his men while you still needed them?”

Robb’s brows knit together. “If you’d heard the way he was speaking about me and to me, you would know.”

Tywin snorted. “Consider, boy, that if I believed death was a fitting consequence for disrespect, I would have killed you the first time you told me to.”

Fuck, Robb thought, he had him there.

“Let me ask you again,” Tywin pressed. “Why did you kill him?”

“I suppose I…” Robb clenched his fists, feeling the dark cold claws of shame sinking into him. Uncle Edmure had urged him not to execute Lord Karstark, but he’d done it anyway, and in truth he knew very well why. He’d been defending the same part of himself that was being wounded right now, recalling it.

Karstark had railed at him that he was more rattled by the deaths of two enemies than he’d been when Rickard’s own sons had been slain by the Lannister boys’ kin. Claimed that Robb’s own mother was more guilty of treason than he, for setting the Kingslayer loose, yet she remained as free as ever so he could cling onto her apron strings when he needed them. He’d accused him of being weak. Called him boy. Goaded him that the so-called King in the North was too much of a coward to do anything but scold traitors and let them go, and it would be no different with him. Those words had been what sealed his fate, not the murders alone.

With great effort, he unfurled his fingers and said, “I killed him for my pride.”

The way Lord Tywin looked at him made Robb feel very much like a student who had just successfully navigated to a correct answer, but the Hand didn’t condescend as far as to say so. “So,” he said, moving on. “The battle.”

“The battle,” Robb repeated.

“You didn’t play to your strengths,” Tywin said. “We’ve spoken extensively about how usually you relied on quick, decisive strikes and surprise attacks to counteract your numbers problem against me. But even though your totals were already down even further with the Karstark departure, that battle was different.”

“It was supposed to be another ambush,” Robb murmured.

“I’m aware,” Tywin told him. “But go on. What exactly did you want to accomplish? Speak clearly, don’t mumble.”

“Yes, sir.” Robb drew in a breath and gathered himself. It’s just a battle talk. You’ve done this loads of times. “I’d hoped that by secretly reunifying my entire army before the attack, you would be the one with the numbers problem that day. I presented the argument to my council that since your army was also split, we’d be able to overwhelm your division and ideally take some valuable prisoners and hostages.” He paused. “Maybe even you.”

“Well, that’s a little ironic,” Tywin replied. “Would you actually have taken me prisoner in that scenario?”

“It…would have depended on the circumstances, my lord,” Robb hedged.

“No need to pretend about it for my sake,” Tywin said curtly. “It would have been foolish to take me alive.”

“More foolish than you taking me alive?” Robb asked.

“Indeed, more foolish even than that,” Tywin confirmed. “My death very probably would have won you your bit of the war and sent my troops back to the capital to prepare for the respective Baratheon campaigns.” He filled his cup from a pitcher and took a sip: always water during these talks, never wine. “My captivity, however, likely brings the full force of the Lannister army down on you instead, since there would be no real possibility of securing my freedom otherwise.”

Robb paused. “You don’t think they would have even attempted hostage negotiations first?”

“There really isn’t any bargain you could have made with my family or my generals that would have justified you releasing your enemy army’s commander,” Tywin told him. “Your council wouldn’t even let you trade Jaime when you thought we had both your sisters, so you certainly couldn’t have traded me for just the one. And you wouldn’t have trusted whatever other lofty promises they tried to give you, if they did try. Which is probably an ‘if,’ since they’d have understood the reality of the circumstances as well as I do. So, no, I don’t see me in chains ending very well for you.”

“I can’t say I was really thinking that far ahead about it,” Robb admitted. “Capturing you was more of a slim possibility than a primary objective. Not that it mattered what it was, because I didn’t plan any of it very well, and the attack didn’t end up being an ambush. You knew ahead of time.”

“It’s difficult to keep large troop movements like that a secret from someone who is motivated to find out about them,” Tywin pointed out.

“That’s what Greatjon Umber said too,” Robb recalled, with a jagged pang of guilt, because the Greatjon was not known to be an overly cautious general, and his hesitation really should have been more notable and given Robb pause. “Would you tell me, did he survive?” Gods, he didn’t think he could take it if he’d all but forced the man to go to the battle that killed him.

A look briefly flitted over Tywin’s face as if Robb had said something funny. But it quickly passed, and he only said, “Lord Umber yet lives. So he objected, and you proceeded?”

With another deep breath, Robb said, “We took down a lot of ravens and didn’t find any messages about it, and we didn’t catch any spies, so I pushed to go ahead.”

Tywin nodded. “You didn’t catch them because you’d gotten a bit lax on your perimeter security, and we’d switched to sending the important messages via riders when our birds kept mysteriously going missing.”

“I see.” Robb ran a hand across his forehead, trying to stay controlled and factual and away from the precarious edge of himself; he could feel that it wasn’t far. “In any case, I didn’t think you knew, and we were moving quickly enough that I hoped you wouldn’t be able to strategically react in time.”

“All right,” Tywin said, his fingers tapping the desk a few times before abruptly stopping. “Here’s the problem. When you realized that it wouldn’t be an ambush because we clearly expected you, and that you wouldn’t have the numbers because I’d recombined forces with my nearest generals and had you at two-to-one, you still came at us headlong where we were waiting for you in the open field. Why?”

That certainly was the problem, wasn’t it? The Blackfish and his outriders had gone ahead and had come back urgently reporting that they weren’t riding into the situation they’d hoped for. But they’d been so close, and the fire had been blazing hot and furious in Robb’s blood, and there was no way he was turning back. “Every northman and riverman here is worth three Lannister scum at least,” he had yelled back, to the cheers of the men around him, and there had been shouts that the King in the North and his wolf were good for three hundred of the bastards apiece, and on they’d gone.

They shouldn’t have been cheering for him at all that day, or for what he was leading them into. Robb looked down, the sharp black tendrils of shame and guilt stabbing into him again, twisting and choking around his heart and mind and body, wanting desperately to turn into anger, into hate, into anything less raw and vulnerable than this.

Lord Lannister didn’t let him dodge it. “You commanded this battle, so you can look me in the eye while you explain it to me. Why didn’t you withdraw?”

A muscle worked in the young man’s jaw as he raised his head and answered. “I didn’t feel like I could leave that day without a fight.”

“You didn’t feel like it,” Tywin reiterated. “So your decision was not a tactical one.”

“No,” Robb said tightly. “Not at all.”

“In that case, I suppose it’s a bit pointless to talk about the tactics,” Tywin said. “The motivations, then. You wanted the fight so badly because…”

“I was angry,” Robb completed it for him. Fuck, he wished he was angry now. Inside him, the shame coiled and tightened and sliced.

The information didn’t seem particularly shocking to the Hand. “And you were angry because?”

“Because of Winterfell,” Robb said tersely. “What he did.”

“Greyjoy,” Tywin said. When he saw Robb flinch, he said, “The name can’t hurt you, boy, and the one who owned it is at the bottom of the Sunset Sea at your request. I won’t make you say the rest of it. Why did you send him home?”

“Because I…” It was hard to say. It’s just a battle talk, he tried to tell himself again, except he couldn’t, because it wasn’t. The rest of it was his home, conquered then burned, and his brothers, captured then dead. He was glad he didn’t have to say that part, didn’t have to asphyxiate on all those terrible words. He tried to focus on the question. “I thought he’d come back with a treaty. I trusted him.”

“And did you trust Balon Greyjoy?”

Robb shook his head.

“Your father taught you about the Greyjoy Rebellion?”

Steady, Robb thought. “Yes, sir. Of course.” He’d been young when it happened, but Ned had filled in more of the details after he’d gotten a bit older.

“It was a mistake for Robert to let the kraken keep his head then,” the Hand said. “Although while we’re on the subject, you might be pleased to know it was a mistake I didn’t care to repeat after Lord Greyjoy’s authorization of the attack on Fair Isle.”

Heart beating a little faster, Robb seized on the moment: a brief reprieve from the agonizing journey down into the worst parts of himself. “He’s dead, my lord?”

“Quite so,” Tywin said. “The evidence arrived a month ago, in a form I don’t believe you’d have been interested in seeing.”

It was true that Robb hadn’t become any keener on the idea of heads in boxes recently. “And the other Ironborn, sir? There wasn’t a war?”

“The new Lady Reaper of Pyke received a choice between standing down or repeating her father’s folly and seeing how well a second uprising would go for her people,” Tywin explained. “Fortunately, Asha Greyjoy seems a less vengeful successor, especially since the Crown went to the trouble of returning her brother and uncle to her to receive the culturally appropriate last rites. The royal fleet escorted her warship here by sea when she came to bend the knee.”

So Theon hadn’t just been tossed overboard by a resentful stranger with no witnesses or proof it had happened. Lord Lannister had not only honored Robb’s request, but had ordered it done in a verifiable way and turned it into a useful negotiation tactic, and Theon’s sister had been able to say what is dead may never die to him before he sank in the waves. Robb felt his nails pressing crescent-moon indentations into his palm. He swallowed hard and nodded.

“But all of that is neither here nor there today,” Tywin continued. “After the Rebellion, did you think a man as honorable as Lord Eddard Stark agreed to keep Theon as a hostage because he believed goodwill and trust and reasonable efforts to treat with Balon were approaches that might appeal to the man’s better nature?”

Robb’s jaw clenched again, despite himself. He was trying. It was just hard.

“Answer,” the Hand commanded.

Sucking in a breath and twisting his hands together, Robb said, “No, my lord, I don’t think that’s why he did it.”

“Certainly not,” Tywin said. “I was there. He did it as a threat to the boy’s life, because even he knew that violence is what the Ironborn understand.”

“I know,” Robb forced himself to say. “And—I knew that then, too, when I sent him. And even if I had forgotten, my advisors reminded me of it and discouraged the idea.”

His mother’s voice had been the strongest in opposition. “Balon Greyjoy is not a man to be trusted,” she’d said.

“I'm sending Theon,” he’d replied, and then, “Good day, mother.”

Those words had been beating against the inside of his skull since he’d gotten the raven about Winterfell. He’d betrayed her before she’d betrayed him, really. The loss of her sons had made her desperate to save her daughters.

The Hand didn’t allow him to get lost in his thoughts. “Then perhaps you thought that the years would have softened the Lord of the Iron Islands? That he’d be so delighted at a reunion with his surviving son that he would forget the bitterness he once bore toward the name of Stark? He would let bygones be bygones and come join your war after you freely handed him your only bargaining piece?”

“I thought…” Robb started, then paused. He saw Lannister draw a breath to tell him to finish the sentence, boy, stop trailing off, so he beat him to it and let the unfiltered answer spill out of him. “That it didn’t matter what Balon thought or Balon did, because Theon was my friend. More than my friend. My brother. I didn’t want to believe he’d betray me.” Under the surface he was going dark again, choking again.

“Brothers have betrayed brothers everywhere since the dawn of time,” Lord Tywin replied calmly. “But it’s practically a sport on Pyke, so the outcome of sending him there wasn’t wholly unpredictable, in a general sense if not a specific one. I’d wager your advisors had a rather less biased view on the matter.”

“I’m not saying it was a smart thing to do.” Robb didn’t know if he was defending himself or condemning himself.

“Of course you aren’t saying that,” Tywin agreed. “Your skull would need to be hollow to claim that now, after history has already proven in excruciating detail that it wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t. And the Karstark execution wasn’t, and the battle wasn’t.” Robb looked down again, roiling with a hundred emotions, feeling them threatening to sweep him right off the edge of control. “Did any of my other generals die that day?” He hadn’t asked about them before. Not because he didn’t think Tywin would tell him, but because he’d been a little afraid to know. In case the answer had added more dead men’s faces to his head.

Tywin watched him evenly. “You know about your uncle?”

Robb saw Edmure’s face again, the same way he saw it some nights, looking down at the javelin. Feeling dizzy and dark and guilty, he nodded. “Who else?”

“Your men fought for you, and you knelt for them, no?” Tywin asked.

“Yes,” Robb said, in a near-whisper. The only thing he remembered clearly about kneeling in the mud that day was that he’d done it for them, not himself. Robb had known, the same way Tywin had, that there would be nothing worth trading him for and no reason to keep him alive. He’d knelt to end the war and die.

“So the others knelt too,” Tywin said, “and they went home.”

That should have made him feel better. Except Robb knew they’d all gone home without a lot of other men who’d also left their homes to fight for him, and he felt their lives just as heavily as anyone else’s, even if he didn’t know their names. He’d been carrying them all since the end of the war.

The edge of the chasm was right in front of him now, the darkness yawning deep and cold, beckoning him in. Part of him wanted to fall, so the sheer weight of the things he’d done could drag him back to the bottom where he belonged. That was what he deserved. He deserved to lay there with the bones of everyone who had died because of him. To rot in that black place until he was nothing but bones himself.

If he toppled over the cliff right now and gave into the despair, he could let himself pretend he didn’t have a choice about it. Just like all the other times he’d ever let himself lose control. He could tell himself it was something happening to him, some external force overcoming him, and not a decision he was making.

But he didn’t want to do that anymore.

Since he hadn’t died, he wanted to live.

If he was going to live, he wanted to be better than that.

Shit, he wasn’t even saying anything here tonight that he hadn’t already told himself a hundred times or more. He’d been over each of these mistakes again and again in the dark silence of his room, regretted and grieved them, put himself on trial and found himself guilty and tried to atone for them. And maybe it was injuring his pride a little more this way, cataloging his flaws and failures with a witness present, but there was no reason to let the truth destroy him now, after all the work he’d been doing to reckon with it.

So he looked down, over the precipice, and he decided. And then he took control and stepped back from the fucking pit, because he had already been to the bottom and there was nothing left for him to find there.

He raised his head and met Lord Tywin’s eyes, wondering how obvious it had been that he’d just been waging a different battle with himself. Probably not obvious at all; the man was shit at reading people and Robb was very subtle with his feelings. “Is there anything else you want to know, my lord?”

“Just one more question before we’re done,” Tywin said. “Did you lose the war because of Rickard Karstark, or Theon Greyjoy, or even me?”

“No,” Robb answered, clear and straight, because he had done it, damn it, so he could say it. “I lost the war and people died because of my own stubborn and reckless and emotional decisions.”

He’d lost the war for ego, for naivete, for blind faith, for impatience, for anger. For being ignorant to his own ignorance. For becoming so accustomed to being the one who spoke that he had forgotten how to listen.

After months and months of bludgeoning himself with the thoughts, it felt strange to say the words aloud. But he felt a little less heavy once they were out of his chest and hanging in the air.

Now that he’d finally said them to someone besides himself, Robb didn’t want to be told things like it’s all right or it’s not your fault. Because it wasn’t, and it was, and he had never wanted to be the type of man who told himself pretty conscience-soothing lies so he wouldn’t have to actually confront the fallout of the things he had done.

Fortunately, he didn’t imagine that Lord Lannister had ever said anything that comforting to anyone in his life.

True to form, Tywin didn’t mince words. He said, “Yes, it seems so.” And he didn’t try to patronize him with a speech about why you shouldn’t let emotions cloud your decisions, or why young leaders should listen to their advisors, or why his own hubris had been his downfall in the end. He also didn’t tell him that sometimes even a gifted war commander might also still be an undisciplined boy refusing to be reined in and giving himself permission to lose control, even in matters of life and death. Because he must have understood that Robb had been teaching all those lessons to himself.

They were quiet for a long while then, and now that they’d exposed the true heart of the entire matter, Lord Tywin was considerate enough to let Robb look out the window, at the grey clouds crawling in from the east over the darkening bay, and think and remember and regret in the silence. Although the man did seem a bit bored by it himself and quickly turned his own attention to the page sitting atop his neat stack of documents.

At sixteen and seventeen, leading an army and wearing a crown, Robb had had to fight so hard to convince everyone around him that he was a man that he’d rapidly convinced himself of it too, and he’d only gotten bolder and brasher with every victory on the field. It felt a bit like a bucket of ice-cold water to the face for him to suddenly grasp with such stark and painful clarity that he’d had a lot more growing up to do that entire time, and probably still did. But it was a good sign, he thought, that he had at least grown enough to understand that now.

“I think it’s just been hard for me to accept,” Robb finally said, sounding reflective.

“What has?” the Hand asked, putting his page back down. “That you lost the war?”

Robb’s eyes snapped to Tywin’s face, and his tone abruptly became something else entirely—something it hadn’t been in a couple of months now. “That something that stupid was the reason I lost, after I’d been stomping your arse for a year and a half.”

Raising his eyebrows, Tywin said, “Oh?”

“Yes,” Robb continued. “When if I’d taken my time and really thought it all through, you would eventually have been the one kneeling on the fucking battlefield.”

Again, Lannister didn’t react much, other than to look vaguely amused and ask, “Is this really what you’re doing, boy?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Robb said. “I just can’t believe I was beaten by an old commander who was clearly past his prime, that’s all.”

The old commander looked at him for a moment, making the decision, and then he got up. “Believe it quickly, or you’re about to be very surprised.”

As it turned out, Robb was not very surprised when he found himself hauled up by the collar and unceremoniously deposited over the desk with a casual strength that did still manage to startle him from a man who had at least sixty years of life under his belt (which, also not unpredictably, was being unbuckled with his other hand).

Since they both knew it was the last time they were going to play this game, Lord Tywin kept him firmly pinned, told him “You really shouldn’t speak to your elders in such an impertinent manner,” then proceeded to deliver a thrashing long enough and hard enough to make it memorable, and maybe also to make Robb regret saying he was past his prime.

And since it was the last time, Robb buried his head in his arms and couldn’t help but let the water in his eyes soak into his sleeve while the belt fell in sharp stinging lines across his backside and legs, because Lannister really did still have a hell of an arm for someone of his extremely advanced age, and he thought about everything he had done—and when it was over he thought that maybe he felt ready to start forgiving himself.

Once he was released, Robb took a moment to steady his breath and collect himself in the calm, clarifying, mind-quieting aftermath of pain. When he got back up, he kept his eyes down, hoping they didn’t look very red, grateful once again for the lack of comment on his tears but a little ashamed that he’d shed them here a second time after he’d vowed not to, even if it had only been an unspoken pledge to himself. Lord Tywin must think he was so weak, crying during a whipping like he was half his age and hadn’t been leading an army less than a year ago.

Two fingers under his chin tilted his head up again, and straight again.

That was all it was.

And then Robb was holding his head up himself.

He breathed in deep, felt the sea air filling his lungs, and looked at Tywin. “On second thought, sir, I do think there’s an argument to be made that some men’s primes last longer than others,” he told the Hand.

“Aren’t you a bright one,” Tywin said dryly, refastening his belt.

“Not always, my lord,” Robb confessed, with the burning pulse of his heartbeat in his skin emphasizing that exact lesson for him.

“I’m afraid I can’t argue with that,” Tywin agreed, retaking his chair and crossing an ankle over a knee. “But then, you are only a boy.”

“I’m eighteen,” Robb said, because he could argue with that, although at this point it was really just for the sake of arguing rather than a deep philosophical disagreement.

“Are you?” Tywin pondered that like it was new information. “It all looks about the same from an old commander’s vantage point. But I suppose if you get too fresh with me again, I’ll have to kill you instead of just thrash you, given that you’re eighteen.”

“Of course,” Robb said. “That seems fair.” He inched backwards toward the door. “Could I be dismissed, sir? Before you change your mind and kill me tonight?”

Somehow Tywin’s paper from his stack had already found its way back into his hand, but he spared Robb enough of a glance to ask, “You’re still here?”

Robb waited until he was on the other side of the door before he allowed himself to flash the offensive gesture that had suddenly crawled into his hand and was demanding to be let out.

“You’ll have to open the door if you want him to see you,” Useless Guard said usefully.

Robb was glad he was the one on shift today. He turned the gesture around to him. “Thanks for letting me know it’s difficult to see through solid oak, but I’ve already had my arse handed to me once tonight, and pretty fucking thoroughly at that. So for the record, your name still suits you.”

The guard kept a straight face. “Maybe you should try behaving yourself. Did you know in the beginning we had a bet on what was going to wear out first, his belt or you?”

A little offended, Robb asked, “What side did you take?”

“With the mouth on you? Seemed like easy odds on the belt. We never settled it, though.”

“Good,” Robb said. “Settle it now and lose your money. I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Right,” he said skeptically. “Well, no matter if you do. I was starting to assume I’d lost it anyway. You’ve been less of a menace these past couple of months.”

Drawing himself up with as much dignity as he could muster, Robb said, “See? I have tried behaving. I can do it again.”

The man sighed. “At least I already made some of my money back betting against you when you fought Clegane’s bastard.”

Robb held up one finger. “Deeply wounded by your apparent lack of faith in me.” A second finger. “Kind of flattered that anyone took the odds on me in hand-to-hand combat with an actual giant.” The third and final finger. “It’s been a bloody long day. Take me downstairs and lock me up and see if you can be quiet about it while you do.”

The guard bowed somberly. “Your Grace.”

But at the bottom of the stairs, before he shut Robb’s door, he defied the royal decree long enough to say, “The Young Wolf and the Giant sounds like a good song title. My son wants to be a bard.”

“Then the rights are his,” Robb said. “Make sure he pens a line about how I had a black eye for damn near two weeks.”

“It’ll be a cautionary tale about knowing your limits.”

The door shut, and the lock clicked, and Robb said through the door, “The Guard and the Bard is a good song title too.”

He heard a chuckle along with the departing footsteps.

 

That night, Robb lay awake for hours. There was a gentle rain falling outside now, and he’d left his flimsy shutters open so he could curl up in his bed and watch the drops plunging past his window or catching on the ridges in the stone, trickling down the metal bars, puddling on the ledge. Now and then, the grey clouds moving across the dark sky would part just enough to let him catch a glimpse of the moon.

It really had a nice musical quality to it, the light steady patter of the water against the thick walls of the keep. It wasn’t a sound Robb had ever had the chance to appreciate very often. Here in King’s Landing, the weather was normally warm and sunny, and rain was an anomaly. In his campaign across the Westerlands and Riverlands, he hadn’t had much time to dedicate to thoughts about the poetry of precipitation: any sort of rain was merely an annoyance, a hindrance to troop movements, something to be cursed at when it soaked the soldiers’ clothes and made a muddy mess of their camps.

And in the North, rains were never gentle. Either the air was cold enough to turn it into snow or sleet, or the rain gusted in with a squall, arriving sudden and fierce like an attack, battering against the walls until the wind retreated as quickly as it had come and took the water with it. But he’d loved those storms too, honestly. The violence and wildness of them. The way they made nature feel like an adversary. Something to grit your teeth against, and survive, and defeat.

A memory found him, then. As a child, when those northern gales swept in, he used to sneak out of the keep to stand amid the fury of the sky, feeling more alive with each drop that assaulted his skin and each rush of wind that tried to make him lose his feet, until he was spotted and harried along inside and told he’d catch his death. He took his mother’s scoldings with a smile while he was roughly towel-dried next to a blazing hearth, and she didn’t seem to notice that he never promised that he’d stop testing himself against the storms, because he didn’t plan to stop and didn't want to lie. 

By the time he was ten and had well outgrown the risk of catching a maternal henpecking for it, Robb didn’t bother hiding the habit anymore. As the winds whipped up and the rain lashed down, he’d take his sword and go practice with it alone in a courtyard, enjoying how much more of a challenge it was to hold his stances and execute his forms with the weight of the air itself pushing against him, his hands slippery on the hilt of his weapon, his feet sliding beneath him.

If his father ever saw him heading out the door for his rain training, he might say something like, “Fighting another storm, Robb? Gods help the storm.”

And then maybe Ned would come out and get soaked himself watching his son for a bit, and when they were both back inside by the fire he might tell Robb it was a good thing he’d never been afraid of storms, because there wasn’t a man alive who could stop one from coming when it was bound to. But wise men knew how to watch for the clouds gathering on the horizon, and which tempests they could stand against, and when to take shelter before they were swept away by one that was too powerful. Wise men could also see the good in storms, even ones that left destruction in their wake, because in the end they made the rivers flow faster and the fields soften for the farmers. Wise men picked up the debris and put the pieces back together stronger, to prepare for the next one instead of living in fear of the day it came.

His father liked saying things like that, about what wise and honorable and good men did, and Robb liked listening, because he was going to be one of those and just needed to learn how. Fortunately, his father knew how, and he’d have all the time in the world to teach him, wouldn’t he? And to help him when the storms came.

As promised, they had come. Only it was Ned who hadn't survived them. 

Despite all his mother’s fretting, Robb never had caught his death in the gales, and his death hadn’t caught him either.

He’d just been swept off his feet, that was all.

Inhaling deeply, Robb thought that he liked the way the night air felt in his lungs right now, too, a little cooler with the change in weather, softer, cleaner. Or maybe he just liked the air tonight because he was glad to be breathing.

When he rolled over in his bed, he winced a little at all the sudden aches that flared with the movement, then closed his eyes and let himself feel them too, because pain was really just another way to tell that you were alive, and that maybe you’d done something wrong, and that maybe if you paid attention to the things the pain told you about yourself, you didn’t have to do that wrong thing again.

As he listened to the softly falling rain and fell into the dark space behind his eyes, he didn’t think much about the war. He thought about how he could be better, and he thought about forgiving himself, and he thought about his father.

Because his father had taught him that an honorable man took responsibility for his actions, and Robb had remembered it well.

But his father had also taught him that a wise man knew when it was time to forgive.

Chapter 24: Getting Better

After that night, Lord Tywin began summoning Jeryd to his study on the same evenings as Robb and pitting them against one another to answer his questions—sometimes about books, and sometimes battles. The interrogative style of the talks didn’t seem particularly new to the other boy; Robb supposed such things must come with the territory of being one of Tywin Lannister’s squires.

“Does he put you through inquisitions like that very often?” Robb asked him while they walked to the training yard the day after Jeryd’s first time sharing a Tower session.

“Not at all,” the boy replied snidely. “Only after every meeting I attend, every message I courier, and every time he gets in a mind to see if I’ve been going to sessions with the castle maesters and paying attention.” He hesitated. “Or if I’ve fucked something up, which is much rarer.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Robb said. “You fuck up in our matches rather frequently.”

Jeryd rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms out, loosening the muscles. “Maybe I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security.”

“Lull me any more and I’ll fall asleep,” Robb rejoined, because although Jeryd was a more adept fighter than most of the others he’d paired with in the yard, he wasn’t about to tell him that.

When they were set up to begin, Robb started out trying to fight with his eyes closed, purely for the comedy of it. Although he managed a decent amount of parrying just by listening for motion and reacting by instinct, it was just as likely for him to feel the blade poke his ribs or tap his throat, and Jeryd counted every time it did. “You’d be pretty well-skewered by now if this was live steel,” the squire said when he reached ten. “Better stay awake.”

So Robb woke up and started skewering back.

What did seem new to Jeryd on evenings upstairs was hearing the more casual way Robb spoke to Lord Lannister—and seeing him get away with it with very few admonishments, which was doubtless the more surprising bit. Maybe he assumed Tywin would handle him privately for his audacity later and just had too much tact to ask.

If so, though, he would finally have been wrong. By this point, Robb knew the boundaries like the back of his (or Tywin’s) hand, so although he still wandered up to them from time to time, he always stopped short of any real lines. Even though he didn’t have intentions of crossing them anymore, it was just enough to make things feel a little dangerous. He seemed to learn better when things were a little dangerous.

At first, he’d wondered if Tywin would be stricter about his comportment now that there was a witness present whom Robb might poorly influence. But he quickly figured out why the man wasn’t concerned: Jeryd was apparently not influenceable by the likes of him, at least not with an audience. Just like the day they’d been introduced, the squire always transformed into a pristine image of professionalism and propriety in front of Tywin, without any of the snark and mockery he directed Robb’s way when they were alone. The boy never approached any edges at all and looked vaguely disapproving when Robb did, but obviously didn’t consider it his place to check him. Yet along with his annoyingly unshakeable discipline and formality, he was sharp and incisive, and whenever he spoke, it was because he had something useful to say.

Perhaps Tywin would have liked for them to compete more viciously in the debates, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. Often, when Robb was (civilly) supplying an answer that Jeryd hadn’t known, the boy would only listen with the same thoughtful expression he’d worn after the first time Robb had knocked him into the dirt. Then he would ask questions if he hadn’t understood something, and would only move on once he did understand it. He never simply pretended or nodded along.

Robb did the same when he was weaker with the topic at hand. Jeryd’s understanding of southern history and politics in particular was so much more detailed and nuanced than his own, and there was a dizzying amount to learn. While Robb’s education at Winterfell had touched on the other six kingdoms, it had very much had a distinctly northern bent, because he was to be a northern lord, and the North was far away from everything else. He had thought he’d known a lot by the time he was sixteen and raising the banners for war, but the more he learned now, the more he felt as if he’d known nothing at all back then.

Lord Tywin really did have quite a library. There were books by historians, generals, various kinds of maesters from the different kingdoms, diplomatic ambassadors who traveled to negotiate with foreign rulers, and more. Robb and Jeryd always got different books, but might be directed to particular chapters covering similar topics, so that instead of learning repetitively they could fill in the gaps in each other’s knowledge during whatever knife-sharp line of questioning might be on the Hand’s agenda.

While Robb wouldn’t ever say it to Lannister’s face, at this point he really couldn’t deny the grudging respect he had for the man’s intellect. And at times, he got the sense that the impression might go both ways, and although it was never said to his face either, it might even be less grudging when it made the return trip.

Usually, if Tywin didn’t like one of their answers or ideas, he wouldn’t exactly tell them so, but slowly prompted them into figuring out its pitfalls for themselves instead. The obvious answer to a question was rarely the best one, so Robb quickly improved at stopping to think before he opened his mouth. Then he learned to ask follow-up questions before he shot off a half-baked answer and was made to dissect his own errors, putting a magnifying glass to the neatly removed heart of his stupidity. (In those instances, if he didn’t do it himself, Jeryd was perfectly willing to pick up the scalpel and courteously perform the autopsy for him. And the next day, the squire would stroll into the stables and unleash any sarcastic comments he’d been holding back, and the subsequent yard fights were better than ever.)

 

The next time Robb saw Sansa, she whispered to him that now she did have a reason to trust Tyrion's intentions toward her, but she couldn’t tell him what it was, because she’d sworn not to tell anyone. Robb didn’t love not knowing, but he respected that she wanted to keep her promises, and gods knew he’d kept his fair share of secrets from her too, so he didn’t have grounds to make demands and agreed to trust her about it.

“Just know that I think I’m really, actually safe, and it’s not all a trick,” Sansa said.

“I’m starting to feel safer,” Robb said. “Maybe I’ll try to see if I can get myself a better reason to think so. I’m still not ruling out tricks.”

 

At the end of the next night in the Tower of the Hand, Robb let Jeryd leave first, and before he followed to be escorted downstairs by the guard, he dared to look back at Tywin and ask, “Just a thought, sir, but what if you gave me the key to my room again and let me walk around without guards, like a normal squire?”

“Hm.” Tywin thought about it, or pretended to. “No.”

Robb sighed. It had been worth a try. “And you still won’t tell me what I’m actually here for?”

“As I recall, I told you it’s books and horses, and I don’t believe the answer has changed much since then. Speaking of the former, would you say you have much of a head for mathematics?”

“I’m decent enough, I suppose,” Robb said slowly, not appreciating the abrupt subject change. “Always found numbers a bit boring unless they were soldier tallies, though.”

“Good.” Tywin rummaged on his shelf and brought over a new book. “You’re not getting another one for a fortnight. Be bored. Soldier tallies aren’t everything.”

Robb sidled back over to his original line of querying. “Do you want me to learn math so you can stick me in some dusty room balancing ledgers for you?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Tywin said. “What a good idea.”

It was not a good idea. Robb tried a better one. “Or do you want me to train and learn strategy so you can put me in the king’s army to defend the sacred peace of the realm?”

“Put a famous traitor in the king’s army?” Lord Tywin mused. “That doesn’t seem very safe.”

“But it could be interesting,” Robb pointed out, trying and probably failing to suppress a smirk.

“It could be that,” the Hand said. “Still, I think the dusty room idea was better.”

“You’re entitled to your opinion, my lord,” Robb ceded. “Either way, does this mean you’re not going to kill me?”

“Kill you?” Tywin asked, as if it were the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “Wherever would you get a notion like that?”

“From all the times you’ve told me you might kill me,” Robb clarified.

“Ah,” Tywin said. “Yes, I’m glad you’ve reminded me. That’s not such a bad idea either. I may have to revisit it. You’d better take your book and go before I do.”

“If I read it, can I have the key after?” Robb negotiated.

“A sane man wouldn’t give a prisoner the key to their cell,” Tywin said acerbically. “And since reading books is half your job, if you don’t read it then I might be left with no choice but to have you executed for dereliction of duty.”

“That didn’t take you long, sir.” But death threats just weren’t quite enough to make Robb go quietly. “I thought when you started lending me these, you said I could learn or not learn what I wanted.”

Tywin poked the mathematics book into his chest. “Yes, but you have to read it in order to decide if you want to learn it, don’t you?”

He always had to have a fucking answer, that somehow still wasn’t one at all. Robb took the book with a bit of a grimace. “At least give me a quill and ink and some parchment so I can practice the damn sums and draw the bloody triangles myself.” Then, for the sake of survival, he added, “My lord.”

“Well,” Lord Tywin said in his signature dry tone, “since you asked politely…”

So Robb got a few extra things to carry down to his prison cell, and none of them were answers.

 

The other half of his job got a bit of an upgrade that same week, after the master of horse’s training assistant took a bad fall while trying to break a stallion, broke himself in three places instead, and was facing an uncertain path to regaining his mobility. Since Robb had proven himself useful in assisting whenever a horse had a medical issue and the beasts already seemed to trust him, the stablemaster thought he might make a good replacement.

Lord Tywin only signed off on the idea once he’d extracted a promise that Robb wouldn’t try to steal the horses, and although Robb had given it, he’d indignantly added that if he was stupid enough to attempt such a thing, he wouldn’t have waited until he had permission to ride them.

“It’s just worthwhile to be clear about it with you,” Tywin said. “You definitely don’t have permission to steal them. Stay inside the fences.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Robb complained, mainly for the irony of such a statement given his situation. One. Tywin’s eyebrows flickered upwards. Two.

He was threatened right on schedule. “Watch yourself, boy. I can always readjust your expectations for you and keep you cleaning the stalls, or find something worse.”

Robb raised his hands in swift surrender. “Slip of the tongue, my lord. Do tell me what to do.”

“Train my damn horses,” Tywin said, and wheeled his dawn mount into a trot out the gate.

So with the Hand’s leave successfully acquired in spite of his mouth, Robb was swapped in to help with the daily behavioral conditioning tasks and exercise rides around the athletic course behind the stables, while a few of the younger stableboys took over the hay-hauling, stall-mucking, and other such unpretentious bits of the routine.

It was a little strange to him, thinking about how he’d been working with the horses for so long, yet hadn’t actually sat a mount since he’d been knocked off his own in the last battle. But it felt totally natural the first time he climbed into a saddle again. And just like when he’d started running, it didn’t matter that he was going in circles: it felt good to ride, and at least on the equestrian course he had some obstacles to leap over too.

When he arrived back to his room on the third day of his new job, sore and exhausted after a long day of training horses and himself, the guards must have conducted a search. Because the first thing he saw was the wooden rabbit, perched atop the open book on the table with the quill propped between its ears, studying math.

“I see my tutor has arrived,” Robb remarked to his escort, who looked in to see what his colleagues had done, laughed, and locked him up.

 

Since mathematics didn’t lend itself very well to debates and he wasn’t particularly interested in checking Robb’s homework, Tywin used the opportunity to add a new type of evening to his squires’ rotation. He’d start by presenting one of the decisions he’d had to make in the past as the Lord of Casterly Rock or Warden of the West or Hand of the King. The subsequent discussions centered around what the best courses of action might have been for each dilemma. Tywin always refused to tell them what he’d actually done until afterward, so he wouldn’t influence their ideas, and didn’t seem offended if they arrived at an ideal solution that differed from the historical reality.

Sometimes Robb and Jeryd disagreed on what constituted an ideal solution, or Lord Tywin would with one or both of them, and those seemed to be Lannister’s most well-liked discussions. He’d prompt them to strip away their biases and defend their positions until the cracks started to show in either side and one was forced to surrender—or neither cracked, so both solutions were acceptable and it was just a matter of choosing between priorities.

When the opposing side was Tywin, whose positions seemed to tower as tall and solidly as Casterly Rock itself, Jeryd tended to be swiftly convinced when he started explaining. Robb gravitated toward the opposite, because the root of the conflict was usually whether the most efficient and personally beneficial solution was also the most lawful and ethical one, and he was perfectly willing to go blue in the face arguing about it while Jeryd watched the moon rise with a look of slight desperation.

For instance, there had been the mining rights dispute where the entrance to the cave system had been on one vassal’s land, but the underground gold deposits themselves were beneath a mountain across another vassal’s territory border. So the lord with the entrance had blocked his neighbor’s access to the mine, and the lord who claimed its contents accused the first of trespassing and theft when he began extracting the gold himself. The gold was too deep for the creation of a second manmade entrance tunnel to be feasible.

Robb would have awarded the full mining rights to the second vassal, since the gold was within his lands and therefore he possessed the rightful ownership claim to the resource. But he would also have required a mediated contract to be signed with the first lord, wherein a reasonable access fee would be paid for the use of the entrance. Jeryd agreed that it seemed fair, and suggested establishing the access fee as a fixed percentage of the profits, so the first lord would have an ongoing incentive to allow his neighbor’s work crews to cross into his lands and mine in peace.

Lord Tywin had issued an edict for the lords to completely split the access and mining rights. The result was quite simple: whoever worked faster and harder in the mine would get more gold. And however that shook out, so would Tywin, thanks to the additional taxes he levied on the mine’s output as recompense for his own time and trouble in managing the situation. Both lords were made to understand that the taxes would increase if there was so much as a whisper of suspicious injuries, sabotage, or similar forms of defiance targeting one another once the decree took effect. Then Tywin had stationed a handful of his own men there to supervise the work (and make sure precious metals weren’t slipping through the entrance untaxed) until the gold veins were depleted.

Jeryd had absorbed the idea, then looked at Robb and said, "Seems like a good way to make sure everyone gets something out of it."

Robb didn't like it. “A solution like that would probably just make it less likely for your vassals to come to you for help at all,” he argued in Lord Tywin's direction.

“So they solve their problems amongst themselves next time,” Tywin said, “and that’s an issue for me how?”

“They might solve them more violently than you want,” Robb suggested.

Unsurprisingly, the Hand had another answer at the ready. “Then there would be troops on their doorsteps whether they asked them to come or not.”

Robb tried another tactic. “It might erode their trust in your leadership when they notice your solutions always seem to benefit yourself.”

“They can trust that if they can’t keep themselves in line, they’ll be kept in line in ways they may not like and which usually involve fines,” Lord Tywin lobbed back. “Would you say trust is worth its weight in gold, boy?”

Sensing that this was a leadup to something, Robb hesitated before answering. “I would, my lord.”

It was a leadup, because the next thing he saw was the flash of a coin leaping toward him, and his hand shot out by instinct to snatch it from the air. “So is gold,” Tywin said.

Robb flicked it back. “Priority issue.”

Lannister looked a little amused when he caught it, and unless Robb was imagining it, maybe even a little proud. “I suppose it is.”

They usually went through three to five of these exercises at a time, and it didn’t take Robb very long to understand why the Lannisters had become significantly more rich and powerful during Tywin’s lifetime than they had been before.

But at least when they disagreed, Lord Tywin seemed genuinely interested in Robb’s perspective, even as he was trying to rip it apart by interrogating it as thoroughly as he’d ever done with a battle plan, and even when they didn’t quite reach a consensus by the end. And when Robb did agree without caveats, Tywin knew he meant it—and the same applied in the even rarer circumstances where Robb voiced a contradiction and manned his defense until Tywin ended up adjusting one of his own viewpoints. Still, those sessions could be immensely frustrating, and Robb couldn’t quite tell if he enjoyed them or hated them.

He could tell one thing, though. Which was that slowly, but surely, he was starting to feel better.

Chapter 25: The Seven Kingdoms

One week, when they’d gone back to history books, the Tower debate centered around the fall of House Durrandon and the ancient Kingdom of the Storm, which had morphed into the present-day Stormlands region after Aegon’s Conquest. When they left, Tywin handed them each different books and told them to skip to the respective parts about the Kingdom of the Rock, back when it was its own sovereign realm ruled by the Lannister Kings—before the Westerlands had become another one of the seven kingless kingdoms, united by a single Crown. “Try to have opinions about whether the West was in a superior position when it had its own king,” he advised.

“Can I save us all some time, my lord?” Robb asked. “I can see the trend developing. You’re obviously leading up to a debate about whether the Seven Kingdoms are better together or apart. Why don’t we just talk about that next?”

“We can talk about it when you understand it,” Tywin said, with a tight smile. “So read your book and come prepared to tell me why it doesn’t matter if you’re technically the richest king on the continent, when your soil is rocky and your people can’t eat gold. And why, if it made any sense to be a Lannister King in this day and age, I wouldn’t already have tried it. Then we’ll keep doing the other kingdoms, and the Kings of Winter last.”

“I already know about the Kings of Winter,” Robb muttered. “I was one of them for a bit.”

“Obviously you don’t know enough about them to stop you from believing that was a reasonable idea,” Tywin told him. “But don’t worry. I have some books on the subject that weren’t written by starry-eyed northerners.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Robb said, but he took his book and left.

When they did get around to the Kings of Winter, around a month later, Robb was a little on edge from the moment he and Jeryd carried over their chairs. Even so, he did his best to concentrate on the facts and take emotion out of it, the same way he’d done for the other kingdoms.

They all discussed the history and the ancient kings for a little while, before Tywin focused just on Robb and asked, “So, if you’d officially won your crown, joined the line of northern kings at the back, and found yourself a nice icy throne to sit on by now, how would you be planning to feed your kingdom this winter?” He paused and took on his mildly humored look. “It is coming, boy, isn’t it?”

“Last time I checked, it was,” Robb said. “And we’d do what we’ve always done. Farm the crops that will grow in the cold before the worst snows set in, store up whatever we could beforehand, and hunt and fish for the rest.”

“Been through many winters, have you?”

Despite himself, Robb felt his jaw setting a little stubbornly. “I was born in the winter.”

“And how old would you have been the last time we had one?”

He’d been six, and it had only lasted a year. He didn’t want to say it quite like that. “Young, my lord,” he answered.

“You’re still young, and the next winter will be longer,” Tywin said. “That’s always the land’s revenge after a summer like this, as I’m sure you’ve been taught. But knowing it is one thing and living it is another. So what would have happened a few years in, when your stores had run out, the animals had inevitably been overhunted, and your subjects started bringing their starving children to your door asking how you were going to save them?”

Robb understood that there was one answer, and that he wasn’t going to like where the logic went from there, and also that it didn’t matter whether he liked it, if it was true. “In a scenario like that, we would have had to trade, sir,” he said slowly.

The logic did indeed go there, with painful efficiency. “And who precisely would you have done that with, if you were perched at the top of six united kingdoms who were all giving preferential commerce and diplomacy arrangements to each other instead of you, didn’t particularly want to help prop up a military-minded foreign power hanging above them like a sword…and who wouldn’t be very amused if you didn’t take no for an answer and sent raiding parties south like your ancestors did?”

Robb ran a hand through his hair. “I suppose it doesn’t matter how independent you call yourself, if your soil is frozen and your people can’t eat snow.”

“Very clever,” Tywin said.

“There might have been a way,” Robb argued, mostly for the sake of the thought experiment. “We could have built up a fleet at White Harbor and traded with Essos instead.”

“Of course,” Tywin reflected. “You could have spent some years living in austerity while your new ships were built, then mustered up an army of warrior sailors to counter the scourge of piracy, trained some professional foreign envoys to speak Valyrian, convinced enough Essosi merchants that it’s worth their while to trade with the poorest region in Westeros, and hoped that the southern kingdoms didn’t get in a mood to come pluck the crown right back off the Winter King’s head, or his head off his shoulders, if he started looking like a threat…”

“Sounds like there’s an ‘or’ at the end of that sentence,” Robb said. “Don’t leave me in suspense.”

Tywin shrugged. “Or the North could simply play nicely with the other regions who share their continent and are legally obligated to keep the king’s peace with them as long as they share a king. As a province of such a realm, it would continue enjoying the practicality of trading its lumber and ore without the risk of a rogue wave sending months of labor to the bottom of the ocean, and sharing the bounties of its neighbors’ sunnier climes through the winter in return. Either way, it’s not a matter of choosing whether someone has power over you, so much as who has it.”

“It’s a nice vision, my lord,” Robb said, “but I’d put on the caveat that it only works as long as the king we share fosters a peace worth keeping.”

“And I’d encourage you to look at what happened to the last few kings who didn’t,” Tywin replied calmly.

Robb took a few moments to ponder that prompt, then said, “Well, the best thing King Joffrey ever did for the realm was die.”

Jeryd had only been listening since they’d wrapped up the history side of the session, alert yet unreactive, grasping that this part of the conversation was not for him. But at that, Robb saw his shoulders tense and his eyes widen slightly as he looked between them, as if he’d just heard something that really shouldn’t have been said.

Lord Tywin noticed his reaction too. “What do you think, boy? Do you disagree?”

The look of surprise immediately turned to one of focus as Jeryd made the calculation. The squire wasn’t going to lie, Robb thought, but he also wasn’t about to say right to Tywin’s face that his first grandson had been a shit king and it was good he was dead. He was searching for a diplomatic maneuver that would allow him to do neither. “Would you mind restating the question, sir, so I can be certain I’m understanding?” he asked. Robb expected it was actually so he could look for fresh new gaps in the words that he might be able to wriggle through with minimal risk of making a poor judgment.

Tywin understood Jeryd’s dilemma too, had probably taught him a variety of slippery verbal maneuvers himself, and must not have seen a point in torturing the boy by forcing him to take an explicit stance on the regicide of his lord’s kin without any clues about said lord’s own position. He posed an ancillary question instead. “Should a good Hand be able to recognize when he’s serving a bad king?”

That one had contained the necessary clue. “Yes, sir,” Jeryd said.

“A good knight should too,” Tywin told him.

“Yes, sir,” Jeryd repeated, and he didn’t sound like he had been rebuked—merely provided with the answer to something he hadn’t been quite sure about.

“But no matter what sort of king sits the throne, an effective Hand reins them in when necessary,” Tywin added. “Some just require more careful bridling than others, to put it in terms I’m sure you can both relate to.”

Jeryd nodded. “I almost lost a finger to that mare once.”

“And sometimes you have to compromise and let the horse kick, so it doesn’t bite,” Tywin said, with a side glance to Robb.

“I’d be the one to know about getting kicked by both the real and metaphorical horses, my lord,” Robb said. “And you’d be the one to know about serving bad kings. You’ve been Hand to more than one.”

This time, Jeryd didn’t flinch. “Aerys was a capable king until he wasn’t,” he told Robb. “By the time he wasn’t, he’d stopped listening to his Hand. And by the time he really wasn’t, Lord Tywin wasn’t his Hand anymore.”

“I suspected one of you might bring up Aerys next,” Tywin said. “So what happened when he really wasn’t?”

“He fell into madness and started executing anyone he thought was an enemy,” Jeryd said. “Including one of the four Hands he went through next.”

“And including my grandfather and uncle,” Robb added.

“And then?” Tywin asked.

“Then my father helped start a war to overthrow him.”

“That he did,” Tywin said. “And how did the Mad King meet his end?”

“Your son got a nickname for killing him,” Robb said.

Jeryd darted in with a question. “Have there been any more sightings of Ser Jaime recently, my lord?”

One of those words captured Robb’s attention. “Any more sightings?”

Tywin answered Robb first. “Yes, I suppose you wouldn't have heard. It would seem that not only is he alive, but his prolonged absence has not been involuntary for some time.” Then he told Jeryd, “No new reports for a month now.” Then, maybe to them or maybe to himself, “The fates forbid he should cease his gallivanting too early and be forced to return home and do something as tiresome as his duty to his family.”

“Or his duty to show me the moves he used to hold off the Smiling Knight when he was a squire,” Jeryd said, sounding closer to complaining than Robb had ever heard him be in this room. Maybe he’d influenced him just a tiny bit, after all.

“I suppose you’ll have to only fight frowning knights for the time being,” Robb told him.

Before they could get sidetracked too far, Lord Tywin herded them back to the path. “Anyway, yes. Kingslayer, as they say. Jaime may have his faults, but I’ve personally never considered that to be among them. The Mad King needed to be put down, the job got done, and it’s foolish for people to spend so much time wringing their hands about whether the way he bloodied his was clean enough for their liking.”

Kingslayer. To Robb, the word had always been synonymous with: Oathbreaker. Backstabber. And Lord Tywin was looking at him like he expected an opinion, so Robb put forth his counter. “Ser Jaime swore an oath for life to protect the king.”

“Yes,” Tywin said. “The Kingsguard also swear an oath to obey the king, which they dutifully fulfilled when their king ordered them to raise their fists against your sister. If you believe that a man’s words matter more than his actions, you may present your defense of those men now.”

Not too long ago, Robb might have let those words and images crawl into his head and turn hot in the thrum of his blood. He’d talked about that day with Sansa once, and she’d cried, and said that not one of the five who were present had refused Joffrey’s command. Only one of them, Ser Arys Oakheart, had even protested before he ultimately obeyed, and had been courteous enough to hit her less hard than the others. That night, Robb had killed Oakheart less hard than the others in his head.

Today, he only looked down at his anger, like he was standing somewhere above it as an observer, and understood it didn’t belong here in this moment. He said, “I’m going to decline that offer, my lord.”

But he knew Lord Tywin wouldn’t let him off the hook as easily as that, because he never did. The Hand asked, “Why?”

Robb paused for a moment, interrogating his thoughts and trying to collect them. He knew that King Aerys had been burning people alive just for petty slights and disagreements. And obviously Robb’s father and everyone else who had fought in the ensuing civil war had wanted him dead. Jaime’s name had only taken on a stain for being the one to do it because he, only a boy himself at the time, had broken his vow to protect a man whose true nature he had not yet known. Suddenly he knew exactly what he thought. “Seems to me that an oath made with honorable intentions is already worthless the moment you’re required to choose between your oath or your honor.”

“Now you’re thinking with more nuance,” Tywin said. “Whether it’s honor, chivalry, justice, power, wealth, pleasure, personal safety, family, or whatever else, an oath is only worth as much as the things a man refuses to forsake in order to uphold his allegiance to it.”

Robb glanced at Jeryd. “Are all those things listed in the code of knighthood? Money and power?”

“The code is about ideals,” Jeryd said. “This is about reality.”

Tywin nodded. “In reality, all men draw their lines somewhere, and that is as it should be. Any who claims he doesn’t have a line is a liar, a fool, or a slave. So how do you figure out how much a man’s oath is worth to him?”

Again, Jeryd was quick on the draw. “Find out where his lines are.”

Robb absorbed this and couldn’t manage to come up with a counterpoint. He had his own lines, of course. He’d sworn never to bend the knee to Joffrey, but he’d done it to protect his family—the same reason his father, whose name was all but synonymous with honor to all who knew him, had set it aside and confessed to a “treason” that had actually been truth. Words mattered, but there were things that mattered more. Instead of arguing, he said, “All the more reason to be careful about the people you trust and the oaths you swear.”

“Some men are more careful than others, as I’m sure you already know,” Tywin said. “But since words are easy to say, you certainly can’t rely on them alone to tell you who is who. Loyalty becomes blind when you think of it as a decision to make once and never question again, no matter how circumstances change.”

Robb thought about Theon and couldn’t manage to disagree with that either.

“In any case, I believe we’ve managed to align on the idea that oathkeeping is not always a virtue and oathbreaking is not always a sin,” Tywin continued. “If you’re interested in truth, you may discover it more often lives in the shades of grey than in the black and white. Pretending that the world can be divided into such simple categories does not make it so.”

“Grey comes in a lot of shades,” Robb said. “A philosophy like that might cause a lot of arguments about precisely which shade the truth is in.”

“Well,” Tywin replied, shrugging. “Perhaps it’s also no great sin for educated people to argue.” His eyes lingered on Robb. “Unless you’d like to argue about that.”

The corner of Robb’s mouth flickered up a bit. “I don’t think I’m the right person to argue against arguing, my lord.”

“Somehow I had a feeling you weren’t. Let’s try a new question. What’s the best kind of war?” He held up a finger to pause Jeryd’s answer and looked at Robb. “He’ll know this one. You try first.”

“The kind you win?” Robb guessed.

“That’s actually the second-best kind,” Jeryd corrected him.

“And what’s the first?” Tywin asked his squire.

“The kind you don’t have to fight in the first place,” Jeryd said, like an old hand with a familiar drill.

“Right,” Tywin confirmed. “Which is also why killing kings should really be a last resort, and it shouldn’t be a decision any knight feels the need to make alone. I’m not about to send a vigilante out into the world primed to start unnecessary wars by stabbing heads of state for their first lapse in judgment.”

Jeryd nodded. “I’ll stab them judiciously or not at all, my lord.”

“Sensible enough to me,” Lord Tywin said. “Fortunately, I doubt it’s a dilemma that will become relevant in your lifetime. Our current king doesn’t seem very determined to become someone that his knights might want to stab, and I intend to keep him that way so you won’t have to shut your eyes to give your loyalty.”

Looking contemplative, as if this was also something he’d never quite been told before, Jeryd nodded again, and Tywin looked back at Robb. “Any arguments about the best kinds of wars?”

Robb folded his arms. “You’re not going to trick me into arguing that unnecessary wars are better than peace.”

“What a shame,” Tywin said. “It might have been interesting.”

“I could argue that sometimes wars are necessary,” Robb offered.

“You could,” Tywin said, “but unfortunately I agree, so I can’t take the other side there. How about we circle back to this: were there more unnecessary wars in Westeros when seven kings ruled seven kingdoms, all of them wanted a piece of what the others had, and there was no one to tell them they couldn’t just invade and take it? Or were there more after the kingdoms became unified, making an attack on any one of them an attack on them all, so the stakes are higher and the wars only happen when a large enough number of people agree on their necessity?”

Robb ran a hand down his face. “You’re developing a real habit of answering your own questions while you’re asking them, my lord.”

“Well, since that answer is more of a fact than an opinion, I don’t know how debatable it would have been anyway,” Tywin said. “Westeros is objectively a much more peaceful and prosperous place now than it ever was before, recent events notwithstanding.”

“I never knew you were such a champion of peace, what with Castamere and all,” Robb commented.

He got Jeryd’s stiff-shouldered disapproval again.

And again, Tywin himself was unbothered. “The thing about a Castamere is, you really only have to do it once,” he said. “The next time, all you need to do is play the song to make people stop and listen.”

“You don’t actually have to drown three hundred mostly innocent people once,” Robb said, locating the perfect point to argue.

“Perhaps that move was more extreme than strictly necessary,” Lord Lannister granted, to Robb’s surprise. “But then, my spineless father would have simply given into the Reynes’ demands and forgiven the uprising, which is why their lords felt emboldened enough to rebel against him in the first place. So I did what I did, and although there may have been a less brutal solution, it accomplished what I intended in restoring respect to our name and order in the west. Even forty years later, men still tremble at the melody, and whether they hate me for it or not, the realm is at peace.”

“Because fear is a tool, my lord?” Robb asked.

Tywin watched him unblinkingly. “But not the only tool, and not always the best one.”

“And feeling remorse is a waste of time, right, sir?” Robb prodded.

“You have a good memory,” Tywin said slowly. “But it’s getting late, and I don’t expect that’s a topic we’ll agree on. Maybe it can be an argument for another night.”

 

The next day, when he and Jeryd went to the training yard, the boy asked, “Are you trying to get Castamered?”

“Weren’t you paying attention?” Robb taunted. “He prefers to only play the song these days.” He clasped the hilt of his sword and waited for Jeryd to take his stance. “But for the record, I didn’t tremble when he played it for me.”

“It’s an awfully fine line between bravery and stupidity,” Jeryd said, rolling his eyes as he raised his blunted blade.

“It is,” Robb replied. “And I walk it well.”

Since Jeryd had been wanting to improve his parrying recently, Robb spent the first match battering relentlessly at him and his sword, feeling the clang of metal-on-metal vibrating in his bones, giving his opponent very little time to breathe or recover. When he finally knocked the weapon out of the boy’s hand and won the match, he quoted, “‘That’s actually the second-best kind.’”

Jeryd looked at him with an expression that somehow seemed both serene and predatory. Then he spent their second match never swinging his sword, not even parrying when Robb struck, but simply dodging every blow that came his direction with nimble acrobatics and swift footwork.

“Are you here to fight or to dance?” Robb asked eventually, stopping, his sword dipping to his side.

But the tip of Jeryd’s sparring blade was at his throat in an instant. “Just trying the first-best kind is all,” he said once Robb had yielded. “I do see the appeal. We both ended that round without a single new bruise.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Robb said, but it had looked sort of fun, so he took a turn not-fighting too. And as much as he appreciated a good fight, he did have to agree with Jeryd: it hurt much less this way.

Chapter 26: Growing Up

Notes:

(Timeline-wise, you can consider this chapter as running concurrently with the previous two, until the end where it catches up/moves ahead.)

Robb liked the way it felt to heal.

He was busy, and productive, and growing stronger, and learning more, and that was all good on its own. But the best thing was that in the nights it was mostly the happy memories that crawled into his head, and they didn’t make him cry anymore.

 

On particularly cold nights when the Stark children were very young, Robb’s mother and Old Nan had often taken turns sharing stories around the fire as the icy north wind rattled the shutters. At their behest, the elderly nurse had usually opted for scary stories, or strange ones, the kind that would make them shiver harder despite the heat of the flames.

But Catelyn, who had not been a particularly warm sort of person herself—or maybe her move to the North had leeched it from her—always chose tales on those nights that made them feel warmer.

Usually, she’d use her words to paint pictures of her childhood summer days in the Riverlands. Rising before dawn with her sister Lysa and brother Edmure and scampering to one of Riverrun’s bridges to watch the sun rise at the point where the Tumblestone and Red Fork tributaries of the Trident met. The smell of the fresh air and the green trees on the banks, and the sounds of birdsong and rustling reeds, and the way everything was pure light on cloudless days. She and Lysa would bring their books or needlework along and watch as Edmure dived from the bridge into the river, again and again, trying to do a more impressive flip each time. They’d clap when he made his tricks and giggle when he belly-flopped. At some point in the morning, they would all be herded inside for their lessons.

But at nightfall the siblings would all creep out to the bridge again. When the moon was full, Cat said it looked like a silver coin floating on the dark surface of the river. And that was the bridge where their mother used to tell the three of them stories, so years after Minisa had died trying to give Hoster Tully a second son, their uncle Brynden the Blackfish would sometimes come out and sit with them in the moonlight and repeat their mother’s favorite tales as often as the children liked, even if it was getting to be past their bedtime.

So if they didn’t want to go to bed yet, Robb and Sansa would always plead to stay up a little longer, and without fail Catelyn would relent and tell them one of Minisa Tully’s stories too.

 

Little Rickon, six years old and as feral as his direwolf Shaggydog, had only become wilder when he and Robb and a newly crippled Bran had been the only Starks left at Winterfell in the months before the war. After Cat departed for King’s Landing, her youngest had reveled in the sudden lack of parental supervision, and it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for his septa to recruit Robb’s help chasing him through the castle grounds so she could yank a brush through his matted hair and scrub off the ten layers of dirt to reveal the boy beneath again.

When Robb remembered Rickon now, it was with tangled curls and his bright eyes and brighter grin shining through the grime as he fled his older brother’s clutches, fast as a stag escaping a hunt, laughing like a madman.

 

Bran had often begged Robb to take him horseback riding when he was still too young to sit a mount himself. Winterfell’s heir, considering himself rather busy and important, had relented less frequently than his little brother would have liked, but now Robb cherished the memories of those rides.

They’d always gone to a little forest just outside Wintertown, and as the horse trotted along its paths, Robb made up stories about the various monsters he expected would be leaping out of the trees at any second. At some point during the journey, Bran had usually been the one leaping, and it was into the trees, and he’d been quick to assure Robb that there were no monsters to be found.

But he would stay in the forest, scampering and swinging between the branches alongside Robb’s horse, just to make sure.

 

When she was eight, Arya had pleaded with her mother and father to be allowed to swim in the cold pools in the middle of the godswood; she was always so jealous when the older boys did. Catelyn had forbidden it, saying that when Arya was a little older she could come soak in one of Winterfell’s hot springs with the ladies, but that she’d surely catch her death in the deep, frigid waters her brothers liked to brave. Plus, Cat added, she was far too wild already, and they certainly didn’t need her running about the wood half-dressed and soaked to the bone all the time as well. As he often did with his daughters, Ned deferred to their mother.

So Arya had gone by herself one day. To hear her tell it, she was teaching herself how to swim wonderfully and there had been no cause for their father to yank her out of the water when he stumbled on the scene. To hear Ned tell it, she had been on the verge of drowning. Robb was more inclined to believe his father on the bare facts of the tale, but Arya’s version was much more entertaining. Her dramatization of the events reached its indignant zenith when she recounted the utterly outrageous and uncalled-for smacking she’d received for her troubles, right there on the rocks by the pool, once her survival and general health had been assured. The ban had remained in effect.

Still, Robb hadn’t been particularly surprised when he and Jon and Theon arrived on a rare sunny day to cool off after their weapons training and found Arya perched on a rock by the same pool—the widest, deepest, most enticing one in the forest—gathering her courage to jump. She’d spun around when he said her name and hadn’t bothered with the pretense that she wasn’t doing what they all knew she was doing.

“Once wasn’t enough for you, little sister?” Robb teased. “Not even enough sense to try one of the shallower pools this time, after your apparent near miss with the Drowned God in this one?”

Theon snorted at that. “You’re bloody daft, Stark. He doesn’t live in little ponds. One day I’ll get you out of this frozen wasteland long enough to show you what saltwater looks like.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “In any case, Ironborn superstitions aren’t the ones to worry about here,” he informed Arya. “Don’t you know father’s hand magically gets harder the second time for the same offense?”

Arya looked a little nervous, because she did know of the family patriarch’s dabbles in those particular dark arts, but she crossed her arms. “I don’t care. I don’t want to sit in the hot springs with the ladies, I want to swim, and I’m not going to learn if my feet can touch the bottom.”

Robb shot a glance at Jon, and Jon returned a smirk, and they’d made it a race, but Robb was the first to scoop her up and throw her in. She surfaced in the center of the cold clear pool, sputtering and flailing and laughing, with her brothers already in it next to her. They taught her how to tread water and float first, then a basic swimming stroke, and to her credit she did take to it quickly.

Since Ned also seemingly used his magic like a homing raven to locate his children engaging in disobedience, he had discovered them there again after about an hour. A meaningful finger-point got them back on solid ground in front of him, all barefoot and shivering and dripping into the blood-red and bone-white leaves that perpetually carpeted the earth in the godswood. The lecture had started in a calm and disappointed tone directed to Arya—how he expected better from her than such willful and especially repeated defiance—and she seemed prepared to endure it stoically until Robb caught her eyes and gave her a nod of permission.

“I didn’t go in this time!” Arya interrupted, thrilling at the chance to clear her good name. “Robb threw me!”

Ned looked at Robb. “Is that true, lad?”

“Yes, sir,” Robb replied, shoulders as straight as a soldier, unimpeachably honest.

“Only because I was too slow to throw her in first,” Jon added, his chin raised as high as his half-brother’s.

“I told them not to, my lord,” Theon said; he had done nothing of the kind but no one saw the use in saying so.

“You boys knew she wasn’t allowed,” Ned said slowly, knowing a loophole scheme when he heard one.

“If she’s still not allowed,” Robb said, ready to die on the battlefield under his little sister’s banners, “then I’ll do it again.” Once again, his father would not be able to detect a lie. Because Robb was not lying.

“No, you won’t.” That was Jon, not Ned, and when Robb cut his eyes over, he could see an identical stubborn set in his brother’s jaw to the one he felt in his own, almost as if they were related or something. “Because next time I’ll be faster.”

Robb thought that his father must have a permanent sore spot at the center of his forehead, judging by how often he saw him massaging it.

Since they were already of an age to have long since graduated beyond the jurisdiction of Eddard Stark’s enchanted hand, Robb and Jon had both been sent to cut themselves a switch and thank whatever tree they got it from. But after their rebellion was addressed, well, Arya knew how to swim, so at supper Ned had told a vexed but resigned Catelyn that as long as someone was with her she could swim, and not to blame him, because she must have gotten the itch from her Tully side; just look at their sigil.

Then he had given his sons a pointed look and said that if they had presented a case like that before taking matters (and their sister) into their own hands, perhaps they could have left the trees alone that afternoon. Both boys had suddenly become quite captivated by their stew, while Cat sighed that if Arya were truly so entranced by the water, she’d certainly hidden it well all the years she’d had to be cajoled or threatened to step within a ten-foot radius of a bathtub.

Never one to do something halfway, Arya had spent the next few months more a fish than a girl, finding random household staff to supervise her, fumbling even harder through her sewing with perpetually raisin-wrinkled fingers, dripping her way all over the castle, and ambushing Robb at inconvenient times with soggy hugs that almost made him regret his courage.

Almost.

 

Of all the Stark siblings, Sansa had been the most different from the rest. She hadn’t dreamed of many grand adventures beyond marrying a handsome prince or nobleman or knight. And she hadn’t had much of a tolerance for dirt or blood, often finding cause to scold her sister and brothers for their various exploits involving one or both of the two. But Robb always smiled at the memory of one year’s harvest feast—he’d been eleven and Sansa nine—when his sister had made it her mission to impart her much-needed knowledge of highborn manners onto her savage ruffian of a big brother.

It had started going downhill before the servants had even brought out the main courses. Sansa had been demonstrating how to break the bread, gently, with your fingers, in a way that minimized the mess. Robb hadn’t quite grasped the lesson and had torn into the loaf with his teeth, sending a cascade of crumbs to the floor. His sister had tsked in disapproval and pivoted to teaching him what the different forks were for. It frankly made his head spin, and Robb, deciding that whoever invented forks in the first place had left themselves a useless legacy, had promptly sworn them off for the rest of the night. Eventually Sansa had begun suppressing her laughter and finding the entertainment in seeing how horribly Robb could corrupt each new manners tutorial.

But at the end of the night, he picked up another loaf of bread, daintily removed a tiny, crumbless piece, and ate it on the smallest fork with his pinky out and a very serious expression. Sansa cackled in delight, then clapped her hands over her mouth as their mother shook her head from a neighboring table. But once Catelyn had turned away again, Sansa seized the loaf and ferociously bit off a hunk herself while Robb had been the one muffling his laugh. So although her graceful composure quickly returned once she’d swallowed her mouthful, Robb knew that beneath all the ladylike gentility the wolf was in her too.

 

Then the memory was him and Jon alone, an amalgamation of all the nights they had climbed the stairs to Winterfell’s ramparts and laid atop the high wall, staring at the stars, melting their two silhouettes into the summer frost that perpetually coated the stone.

They’d talked about a lot of things on those nights. Jon sometimes asked if he’d ever thought about seeing what lay beyond Winterfell, in the big wide world out there. But Robb really hadn’t thought about that often, because there wouldn’t have been a point: his place was Winterfell, and the world was not wide for him. As much as Jon had hated bearing the name of a bastard, there was a certain freedom in it too—or maybe it wasn’t so much freedom as their options being limited in different ways.

Since the last time he had seen Jon, on the day he had departed with Uncle Benjen for the Wall, Robb had seen a whole lot more of the world. He’d wager anything that Jon had as well—just in the opposite direction.

 

Robb had sparred with Jon and Theon nearly every day, growing up, under the watchful eye of Ser Rodrik. Individual training in swordsmanship with his father, however, was a rarer and more precious thing. Ned had known his love for it, and so before he left Winterfell—amid all the chaos of his appointment to be Robert’s Hand, Bran’s fall, the wait to see if the boy would live, and then the king’s eventual command to set south—he had asked Robb to join him in a private courtyard for one last lesson.

The sparring had been interspersed with bits of wisdom, questions back and forth, and final refreshers on the various duties that would be expected of the acting Lord of Winterfell. Robb focused on all of that as best he could, but it was also a highly enjoyable match, so he was paying equal attention to the movement of his feet, the smooth feeling of his sword as an extension of himself, the clues in his father’s body language telegraphing how he might move next. Ned would always coach the boys in these sessions, pointing out their errors and offering tips, but he never simply let them win by faking his own loss. And while instinct did a lot of the heavy lifting for Robb, it still required a lot of concentration to put up a worthy fight.

It was his father who paused first, to wipe the sweat from his brow. Robb used the moment to catch his breath, but he didn’t let his guard down, because that was always one of the lessons: even if your opponent seemed tired or distracted, you should expect them to strike at any time.

“There’s going to be a lot more responsibility on your shoulders now, Robb,” his father had said in the pause. “And I’m sure you will feel unworthy of it at times, as all men of integrity do, but I have faith that you will rule fairly and make good choices. Although you should know that sometimes those will manage to weigh just as heavy on you as the bad ones.”

“Then I definitely won’t make the bad ones,” Robb assured him, his eyes dipping to the sword at Ned’s side, wondering when it might dart back into action.

“Often you won’t know which they were, until after,” Ned told him. “The gods know I’ve made my mistakes with it all, in my time. And I’ll probably find some entirely new ones to make in the south.”

But Robb had known he wouldn’t, because his father always knew the right things to say and do, and he didn’t make mistakes.

Ned had been quiet for a little while, looking around the courtyard, and then returned his gaze to his eldest. “Winterfell was never meant to be mine, but it was always meant to be yours. It’s just happening a bit sooner than I might have thought. Do you feel ready?”

“Yes, father,” Robb said. “I’m ready.” And he had felt ready then, mostly, with all the untested confidence of a fresh sixteen-year-old eager to show himself a man.

Seeing the slightest gleam of silver in his periphery as Ned’s sword tilted subtly upwards, Robb reacted with a sudden lunge forward. Ned smiled and sped up his arm in time to parry, but Robb still struck the exact correct place to send his father’s blade spinning to the ground.

Eddard Stark had looked down at his sword, and then back to his heir, with pride in his eyes. He’d tousled Robb’s hair and said, “Maybe next time I come home, you’ll be teaching me.”

They’d sheathed their weapons and Ned slung an arm over his son’s shoulder as they walked off to the Great Hall for the final night’s feast. The party would set out in the morning.

Winning the match had been the thrilling part of that afternoon to Robb. He hadn’t even remembered most of his father’s words until now. He hadn’t really understood them then, the way he did today.

Robb’s eyes had been a little wet when he opened them after that memory, so he supposed he wasn’t entirely out of tears.

 

When the dawn of Robb’s nineteenth name-day painted sunrise colors into the sky over Blackwater Bay, he didn’t tell a soul about it. But Sansa had demanded last time they met that he request his monthly leave to spend this specific afternoon with her, and so he had.

She’d finagled her way into an assortment of brambleberries from the North and had tarts waiting for him, the kind that had always been his favorite and tasted so much like home. At one point, Sansa peered out into the hall and used one of the tarts to bribe the guard into giving them a little extra time that day. The guard broke off a piece and insisted on watching Robb eat it first before he would accept the trade. Robb supposed they must have all attended the same seminar on poisoning.

The afternoon passed in the shifting sun-dappled shadows on the wall as they traded memories of their childhood name-days, and darkness fell slowly. It wasn’t until the guard knocked and Robb caught himself telling his sister that he’d “better be getting home” that it struck him that perhaps his tiny corner of King’s Landing was starting to feel like home in some strange way as well.

Maybe it surprised him, and maybe it didn’t, that he didn’t get to savor the feeling long before it ended.

Notes:

(I know, I’m very very evil. See you next week.)

Chapter 27: Endings and Beginnings

Notes:

Things are about to happen very suddenly. You may want to sit down. (This might have last-chapter vibes, but it isn't. Still have a little ways to go.)

Several weeks after he’d turned nineteen, Robb woke up one morning and knew immediately that something was wrong. Because he’d been woken by rays of light through his window, and normally the guards fetched him while it was still dark.

And he was sure something was wrong when he heard doors keep opening into the stairwells above and below his room, feet pounding up and down the stairs, a hum of commotion.

It wasn’t about him. No one came for him.

Whenever he heard someone pass by his door, he pounded on it, hoping it would be a guard, and hopefully one of the ones who liked him. A solid half of Tywin’s guard regiment had become somewhat friendly to him by now. They might tell him what was going on.

Shortly after noon, when he banged on the door, the passing footsteps stopped. Their owner approached and called through the door, “What?”

The voice belonged to the guard who had given him a handkerchief for his bloody nose. “What’s going on?” Robb called back.

A pause. Then a reply. “The Imp put two crossbow bolts in Lord Tywin’s chest last night. Coward shot him unarmed in his bed. He’s dead and the dwarf’s in the wind.”

The footsteps retreated. Robb felt dizzy. Tywin Lannister is dead, he repeated in his head. His second thought was Sansa. He banged on the door again. “Wait!”

But the guard was gone.

And no one else came.

Robb leaned against the wall and sank to the floor. Dazed. Thinking. Feeling strangely empty about the news.

So it hadn’t been a Stark who slew Tywin Lannister, with either honor or dishonor, and Robb doubted he’d died smiling. He’d been killed with scorn by the son he’d despised since his birth, and not even the promise of a continued lineage to assure Tywin in his final moments that at least his name would live on and his bloody fortune would secure the future of his house.

Maybe he should have felt robbed, he thought, that he hadn’t been able to do the honors himself—but as he considered it, Robb couldn’t find any shred of that feeling inside him at all. He suddenly located a different shred, though, and when he interrogated it, the word he found for it was relief. Not relief that his captor was dead, which would have been easier for Robb to swallow, but relief that he hadn’t ever had to follow through with his own threats or ideas or visions of ending his enemy. Because after everything that had happened, Robb still found it difficult to admit to himself that he hadn’t wanted to kill Tywin for a long time now.

The man was hard and ruthless. He’d inflicted a lot of pain on the world and left many bodies in his wake to serve his own ambitions. On an intellectual level, Robb knew that. Just like he understood that Tywin had probably been helping him for selfish reasons too. To eventually shape him into some sort of productive underling that he could command. To use Robb’s mind as a shiny new gear in the machine of his own future schemes. To point to his life as evidence to preserve a fragile peace with the North.

It hadn’t even honestly been much of a secret, had it? Lannister must have seen Robb as a useful resource, and he hated wasting resources, and he’d been willing to gamble that he’d get a return on his investment. He’d found a blade that needed sharpening and had hoped he could wield it without cutting himself one day.

Which was why Robb felt a little ashamed that every small kindness from Tywin had become something he genuinely valued. Ashamed at his own small sense of pride in earning the respect of a man who did not give it cheaply. Ashamed that sometimes when Lannister looked at him, Robb had the unmistakable sense that he would have liked having a son and heir like him, the Kingslayer and the Imp be damned. And while Robb had never wanted to be anyone’s son except Ned Stark’s, he hated that it had been a good feeling even so.

Because for all the times he’d pictured killing Tywin over the past year—in each imagined scenario with a weapon in both their hands, like the man had predicted during that first meeting in the tent—by the end, had he really owed him the revenge he’d threatened then? He couldn’t honestly say so. After Lannister had spared his life, had taught him many of the world’s hard truths that his father hadn’t been able to prepare him for or even quite fathom himself, had made him into a savvier and stronger man and quite possibly even a better one…revenge had no longer felt like his duty or his right.

Perhaps that was why those particular visions had started feeling bitter and sad, and then he’d had them less and less, and they’d disappeared along with the rest. Perhaps that was why right now, he could feel the tide creeping in. But he was stepping back and back and back, because he didn’t want the ocean to catch him here. He didn’t want to grieve this.

It was right that it was Tyrion, Robb thought. The derisive way Tywin had spoken about him, in the rare instances he did, was practiced enough that Robb could tell it was not a fresh contempt. From the moment Tywin had told Robb he had “two-and-a-half children” in the war tent, that had been clear—even though it seemed obvious to Robb that it wasn’t a man’s physical stature that made him whole. Judging by what Sansa had said about him whenever they met, Tyrion had been true to his word with them both and had never given Robb cause to regret the whiskey, and he suspected and hoped that was still true.

Yet the youngest Lannister must have grown up so unwanted and unloved, rejected simply for having the misfortune to be born in a way that killed his mother and disgusted his father. And while Robb didn’t know if there was a specific reason Tyrion had done it, or much about what had been going on in the city and the realm outside of his own small simple life here, that had probably been the start.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, that other people had their own rich and deep and storied lives going on all around you, and that some events had nothing to do with you at all. For now he was only certain of one thing. Which was that Tywin Lannister’s death had belonged to Tyrion’s story, not Robb’s.

Maybe it was for the best that Robb hadn’t known, when he and Jeryd had left the Tower a few evenings ago, that there would be two arrows in Tywin’s chest before there’d be a next time. He might have done something stupid, like trying to thank him for his life. Lannister would have hated that. Robb wondered if he would have said the same thing as when he’d thanked him for protecting Sansa from Joffrey: “Don’t thank me. It wasn’t a favor.”

Or maybe: “Well, you didn’t stab me at dinner that one night, and we both know you could have, so we’re even.”

Or if this time, no matter what he had said, maybe he would have actually meant, “You’re welcome.”

Actually, while he was imagining things, he might as well make Tywin say: “No, Robb, thank you. You’ve just been such a delightful prisoner.”

So then Robb could have been the one to say: “Don’t thank me. It wasn’t a favor.”

 

He spent the rest of that day, and then the night, in a bit of a daze, confined to his room and seemingly forgotten amid all the turmoil. But around noon the next day, when Useless Guard was the one who finally thought to bring him something to eat, Robb seized on the moment as soon as he opened the door. “You have a son. Do you have a daughter?”

The guard ran a weary hand down his face. “Why do you want to know?”

“My sister’s husband is apparently a murderer.” Robb clasped his hands together. “I have to make sure she’s all right. Even if it’s just for a few minutes.”

He looked sympathetic, but hesitant. “I asked about you before I came. Captain said not to do anything until we’ve gotten specific instructions about you.”

“I swear I won’t run or do anything stupid,” Robb promised. “My word is good, but you don’t have to trust it. Make me wear all the chains you have. Wrap me up head to toe, as long as I have a gap around the eyes to see her.”

He must have had a daughter, because he sighed. “Let me see what I can do.”

When he came back, he said that Sansa was with Lady Olenna in the gardens and that Robb was not only allowed to join them, but commanded to by the Queen of Thorns herself. Robb thanked him profusely and informed him that he was officially changing his name to Useful Guard, and the man said, “Ah, fuck it. Call me Mikken.”

“You were always my favorite, Mikken,” Robb said earnestly.

“Stop being nice to me before I call it off,” Mikken grumbled. “It’s suspicious from you.”

“You can’t call it off,” Robb pointed out. “The Queen of Thorns commanded it. She’d have your head.”

The guard rubbed apprehensively at his neck. “I think you meant that as a joke, but I wouldn’t put it past her. We’d better hurry.”

 

The second Sansa saw them approaching, she ran to meet him with a “Robb!” And then she thanked the guard, seized her brother’s hand, and pulled him along to a gazebo on a terrace, beneath which sat a table covered in beautiful tea dishes and an assortment of little sandwiches and desserts, all presided over by an old woman in a chair. “I’d like you to meet Lady Olenna. She swooped in when she heard the news and has barely let me out of her sight since.”

“Can you blame me?” Olenna Tyrell asked, standing and extending a hand to Robb with a warm smile. “Your sister is just such a lovely creature to keep in one’s sight. I’m very pleased to finally meet you.”

“And I you, my lady,” Robb said, taking her hand and bending his head. “I can’t thank you enough for your kindness to my sister. If I ever find myself in a position to repay you, you need only say the word.”

“Nonsense, I won’t hear another word about repayment,” Olenna assured him. “It’s been just lovely to have Sansa’s company since Margaery and I arrived as strangers to this strange land.” Then she took on a bit of a roguish look. “Her tongue’s gotten a little sharper since the first time we met, I dare say. I don’t think I can claim full credit for it, but I do like reminding my roses to have thorns.”

“You deserve the credit for helping me grow them,” Sansa said. “And it’s a very strange land. Have they told you anything yet, Robb? I wanted to see if we could send someone to find you yesterday, but they wouldn’t let anyone near the Tower of the Hand.”

“All I know is that Tyrion shot him,” Robb answered. “But not why, or anything else.”

“Go on, dear, take a stroll and catch your brother up on the sordid tale,” Olenna said. “He must be dying of curiosity. I’ll still be here when you get back, and I’ll fend off anyone who tries to follow you down the path.” She gave a meaningful look toward Robb’s guard. Mikken was standing about thirty feet away with a few members of the Tyrell household guard, looking a bit shifty.

Sansa took him out for a walk in the gardens. As they strolled through the lush greenery and fragrant flowers, she told him what she knew.

A few months ago, Sansa had discovered that Tyrion was in love with one of her handmaidens, Shae, who was actually a prostitute from the Free Cities of Essos that he’d had smuggled into King’s Landing. They’d been going to great lengths to keep it secret, due to Lord Tywin’s demands that his youngest son start acting like a proper man worthy of his name and inheritance and stop stumbling around half-drunk and consorting with whores.

Given that Sansa had moved in with Tyrion, continuing to hide it from her forever ultimately didn’t end up being possible, so they’d had no choice but to trust her. Since it worked out well for Sansa to be spoken for and protected by someone who assured her he didn’t want anything from her except her discretion, she’d sworn to keep it to herself; that was the secret she hadn’t been able to tell Robb. It worked out equally well for Tyrion to be able to stay in King’s Landing with a wife-in-name-only who was perfectly happy to keep up the ruse for him. It was a good arrangement.

As far as Sansa had known, those were all the relevant details. Tyrion seemed to crave his father’s approval and fear the man in equal measure, so it made sense why he was so adamant about the secrecy and she hadn’t questioned it further.

What she hadn’t known, until it all melted down and Tyrion told her the rest, was when they’d been married, the Lannister patriarch had apparently told his son that the two of them could manage their situation however they liked, under three conditions.

First, that Tyrion would not harm the Stark girl in any way, including forcing himself on her. He would not be tainting the family’s public image in any new, exciting ways with any sort of abuse or impropriety. (Not that he had to be told that condition, Tyrion had protested, but it made more sense after he’d heard the next two.)

Second, that it would be in Tyrion’s best interests if his new wife grew to like him, because he would not be recognized to inherit Casterly Rock until he had a legitimate heir himself. No heir, no Rock. At one time, Tyrion had wanted nothing more than the castle, so Lord Tywin might have considered it a good incentive for him to put in the work toward a healthy marriage and the production of the desired lineage. But just in case it wasn’t, there was the third condition.

Third, that if Sansa didn’t ever like him enough to consent, Tyrion would be in for a very miserable and lonely life, because either way he would never be touching another whore again. As a very key addendum to that point, Tyrion had been warned that he wouldn’t like what happened to any prostitute he was caught with, if it turned out that he was keeping his old habits up once he had a wife he’d been ordered to treat with respect and hopefully an heir on the horizon soon.

The marriage had never been sailing toward that horizon at all, however. Tyrion’s heart already belonged to another and he had no interest in changing that, Rock or no Rock.

Everything had fallen apart quite abruptly, when the castle’s eyes saw something, or the castle’s ears heard something, and it had all been uncovered. Shae had been promptly thrown in the dungeons while her fate was decided, and Tyrion—who had apparently been through a similar traumatizing situation in his youth that he hadn’t gone into detail about to Sansa—had some very vivid ideas about the array of possible fates there were to choose from. But this time, he wasn’t about to let any harm befall her, and had finally had enough of letting his life be dictated by a man who hadn’t ever seemed very impressed by it.

So he had locked Sansa in their apartment and stationed guards outside with strict orders not to let her leave for the night. That way, she couldn’t be implicated and there would be witnesses to confirm it. And then he’d crept up a secret entrance to the Tower of the Hand, killed his father, distributed bribes to get his lover freed before the murder was discovered, hopped aboard a boat he’d arranged to wait for them, and sailed off with Shae somewhere where he wouldn’t have to be a Lannister anymore.

For Sansa’s part, she said, she wished her “husband” well, but she was glad she didn’t have to keep pretending that was her last name either. Since the marriage had never been consummated, she planned to have Margaery speak to the High Septon about an official nullification. The queen didn’t tend to involve herself very directly in affairs of state, especially since Cersei was still queen regent until Tommen was of age—but Margaery had become quite pious recently, so she had enough sway in the Faith to ensure that Sansa would be a Stark again soon.

It was quite a tale, and not all that divergent from what Robb had anticipated. What Tyrion had done made perfect sense, really. And it had nothing to do with him.

Yet he also couldn’t help but wonder, as they wandered back toward the gazebo, if it was just a fluke that all three of Tywin’s conditions seemed designed to ensure that Sansa would be safe and relatively comfortable, with a certain level of agency over her own choices within the marriage and an expectation of fidelity from her new husband. And if maybe that had anything to do with him.

 

“I do hope you’ve been all right,” Olenna said to him when they returned and she'd beckoned them to sit. “All of my sources have seemed to think so.”

“They’ve been correct, my lady,” Robb said, then hesitated. “I wonder if your mysterious sources might have given you any insight on Lord Tywin’s plans for me, if he had them? My future seems even less certain to me now than it did two days ago, and I can’t say it was a great deal clearer then.”

“Well, I did ask after you once with the Lord Hand himself, actually, once the crown was on my granddaughter’s head and the dust had all settled a little,” Olenna said, sighing. “But the man could be so cagey. All he said was that he’d ‘made the Stark boy his squire,’ you seemed to be capable enough at the job, and he’d be taking no further inquiries about it.”

“That sounds like him,” Robb said. So much for an easy answer.

“After that, I had people peek in at you from time to time for the peace of mind of my young friend here”—she gave Sansa a fond look—“but otherwise, I hope you don’t mind that I left the matter alone. It seemed to me that worse fates could have befallen you than getting a bit of mud and sweat on you, and I’m afraid I’d already expended most of my own leverage on the protection of other people.”

And the killing of kings, Robb thought, but he only nodded. “Perfectly understandable. It isn’t wise to push one’s luck too far with a lion.”

“There are the teeth to consider,” Olenna agreed, “and the claws. Is it too blunt to tell you I'm surprised you're alive at all?”

“Yes,” Sansa said, at the same time Robb said, “No.”

When his sister gave him a look, he said, “What? I've been waking up alive every morning for over a year now, and it still takes the first hour for the shock to wear off.”

Lady Olenna smiled. Then she looked him up and down and said, “In any case, now that the coast is a little clearer, let me see if I can put a bug in the king’s ear about you.” She winked. “I think I know a bug.”

“I’m going to tell Margaery that you called her a bug,” Sansa said, tossing her hair back a bit. “And I won’t provide any context that might save you.”

Raising her eyebrows at Robb with a stricken expression, Olenna gestured to his sister. “There’s one of the thorns now. Doubtless she intends to extort me for more lemon cakes.”

He’d always enjoyed it when Sansa told him stories about her days in the gardens. It was nice, finally being part of one. Then Robb glanced back down the path, where Mikken was waiting with obvious tension in his posture.

Lady Olenna followed his gaze. “We’ll let you go put the man out of his misery in a moment. He did mention he shouldn’t be letting you out and about without leave from someone in his chain of command.”

“Now tell him what you said,” Sansa prodded, with a scolding note in her voice.

Sounding utterly cheerful about it, Olenna obliged. “That if he didn’t smuggle you out for an hour or two, I’d see to it he had cause to worry about the chains they have down in the dungeons instead.”

“He was only trying to be nice,” Sansa told her disapprovingly. “You didn’t have to threaten him.”

Still unabashed, the Queen of Thorns waved her hand at Robb. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Here,” Sansa said, starting to assemble two plates of desserts. “One for you, one for him.”

“The vine may be sharper, but the flower’s scent is still sweet,” Olenna sighed. “Well, along with you, young man. I can’t make any specific promises about your fate at the moment, and this is all very fresh, so we’ll give it a few more days to get the lay of the land.” She caught Robb’s eyes and tilted her head toward Sansa, who was focused on selecting the prettiest biscuits. “When Cersei doesn’t have the right person on hand to blame, she’s happy to settle for the wrong one. But we’re ready to prick that lion’s paw if she tramples in the garden.”

Feeling so grateful he could have cried, Robb said, “That’s all I could ask for. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

Then Sansa was flinging her arms around him, like she was trying to squeeze the air out so he couldn’t say something like that again, and telling him, “It does.”

“Hold tight,” Olenna said to him when his sister had reluctantly let him go and collected her dessert plates to push into his hands instead. “I’ve a feeling the sunrise will continue surprising you for a while yet.”

Robb bade them both farewell and walked back down the path toward the guards. Before Mikken could say anything, Robb held out the plates and said, “One’s for you. Don’t be paranoid. Point to anything on either plate and I’ll eat it.”

The guard pointed to a honey cake.

“Not that one,” Robb said. “That’s the poisoned one.” Then he flashed a grin and ate it.

“I will say, you’ve made this job more interesting,” Mikken told him. After he’d had him eat a few other things just in case, the guard accepted the bribery and escorted the prisoner back to his cell. “Any other favors I can do for you while I’m here?” he asked sarcastically before he shut the door.

“Actually, yes—” Robb started, but the door swung closed before he could finish. “Thanks anyway,” he called after him.

 

The next afternoon, a few of the other guards came around to bring him another meal, and Robb got the impression they actually felt a little bad that he’d been forgotten about and starved the first day. To be honest, Robb had barely noticed, and could hardly blame them for being preoccupied with the situation. He was far more surprised that they would even give a second thought to contrition over the temporary discomfort of a prisoner, and he’d been through much worse.

For the time being, the guards seemed equally uncertain about what to do as Robb was, but figured they had strength in numbers and invited him down a floor to one of the guard stations. Robb was glad to see that Mikken was there, because he’d been a little worried that the man might actually face some trouble for yesterday’s unauthorized excursion. But nothing was said about that.

They pushed him into a seat at a round table, fetched him a mug of ale, laughed when he made them taste it first, and taught him one of their card games. He lost the first four rounds, won the fifth, sixth, and seventh, and they switched to a new game.

“I heard you lot enjoy making wagers,” Robb said, once he’d grasped the mechanics. They were using dice this time, and it was a simple game of luck. “I’ve one in mind.”

They agreed to hear his terms.

Robb held up an arm and tugged at the red-and-gold sleeve. “If I win, you have to get me some new clothes that don’t have any bright fucking colors on them. Hated this thing enough while I had a reason to wear it. No sense in pretending I’m still squiring the dead.”

“Trying to swindle us, Stark?” asked the guard Tyrion had bribed in the stables. “Don’t think you’ve got anything to put up if you lose. We don’t want your pet rabbit.”

“Lord Tywin’s assassin made me that,” Robb mentioned casually. “A token of his friendship, I suspect. We became so close on the road.”

“Did you ever name the bloody thing?” another questioned.

“Never did, actually,” Robb said, and thought about it. “Robb, the smaller?”

“If that’s the route you’re going, there’s an obvious answer,” Mikken said from where he was leaning up against the doorframe, keeping lookout. “Rabb.”

That got a few chuckles. One of the others lightly punched his shoulder. “The little bard’s been improving your wordplay, has he, Mik?”

“Aye, and he’s a right terror about it.” Mikken sounded dejected and proud at the same time. “It only took him nine years to be smarter than me. And he’s teaching the girl, too. I don’t get any peace when I’m off on leave.”

“In any case, I actually do have something else to wager,” Robb said, and held up the one gold coin he’d kept from the first night he and Tywin had drunk together.

“Who’d you steal that from?” the bribed guard asked, looking amused.

“I earned it,” Robb said stubbornly. “And I reckon a gold dragon is worth more than a few scraps of clothing, so I want new boots too.”

“If the dice throw your way,” said his neighbor.

The bet was on, and the dice threw his way.

They let Robb stay for a few more hours before returning him upstairs to his room. In the evening, there was a knock, and the sound of the key, and the guard who had come to pay up. It was just a simple black tunic, trousers, and the new boots, but putting it all on felt a bit like changing back into himself. Whoever that was now.

 

It took a few more days—and Robb learned a few more games—before the goldcloaks came.

They didn’t bother knocking. It was just the key turning, and one of his guards silently opening the door, and two shiny soldiers outside. “You’re wanted by King Tommen,” the first said curtly.

Robb offered his wrists for the shackles he assumed would be coming, but the soldiers exchanged a look and shrugged. “We weren’t told to chain you, but make a wrong move and the Kingsguard will see to you,” the other said.

He was brought directly to the throne room. A place he hadn’t been since the day with Joffrey. It was empty in the hall today, with no audience to witness whatever events were intended, but as Robb walked down the aisle he could still hear the echoes of the jeers and laughter and howls.

When the guards stopped him, he was standing before the thrones, in the same place Joffrey had made him bleed, but today the stones were clean and a different king sat on the Iron Throne. He straightened his shoulders and looked up at King Tommen, who was joined on either side by Queen Margaery and his queen mother on their own thrones, and waited for someone to speak.

“Robb Stark, the Crown welcomes your presence here,” Tommen began, a bit hesitantly, but clearly doing his best to sound like a king. “I would first like to say that if you are not my enemy, then I am not yours. It was my grandfather’s intention as Hand to see you restored as Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, if you remained loyal and continued to pledge your fealty. This is my wish as well and I would prefer to see it done without delay in his memory.”

As he listened, Robb tried to figure out why he was so surprised, standing here, hearing this.

Maybe it was because he had never let himself dream in any real sense about going home. He’d let himself think that perhaps Tywin meant to make him a personal retainer, an aide, an advisor, a member of his war council. Something that would give Robb a respectable and useful role, while keeping him in the south where he’d be easier to manage. A position that would allow him to use his mind for something important and feel just free enough not to chafe too hard about it, but would still be decidedly located in the shadow of the Hand’s thumb.

But giving him back his real freedom, his castle, his lands, his titles? Just like this? Robb hadn’t allowed himself to expect that. Because if he’d ever let himself really hope that one day he might return to the North, it would have hurt too much if he never did.

Was this the idea Tywin had been testing a month ago, when they talked about the Kings of Winter and an independent North? Had that been a useful bit of proof that Robb wouldn’t pose a serious threat again? Had Lannister been leaving his options open until he was confident enough to plot a trajectory one way or another?

Gods, Robb supposed he had to hand it to the man: he was good at what he did. Tywin hadn’t asked him: if I gave you the chance, you wouldn’t try to start another war, would you? He’d only made him figure out why it would be a bad idea. And he hadn’t only been talking to Jeryd about good knights and Hands and the kings they served. He’d been making sure Robb heard that this time around, his fealty would also belong to a king he wouldn’t want to kill, and whose rule he could peacefully accept.

But of course Lannister had been a shade too cunning to share this with him, damn him. He wouldn’t have wanted Robb to just play along, doing whatever he possibly could to accelerate his release and get himself back into a position of power. Before Tywin sent a talented war strategist back to the people who had fought his war, he’d wanted to be sure that he wouldn’t be compromising his own house or his grandchildren’s rule by relying on a false trust in a former enemy.

Tywin’s favorite response lately, whenever Robb had tried to slyly (or blatantly) pry for information about his future, had been to ask him if he heard a mosquito, because he thought one had just been buzzing in his ear, and he’d probably have to kill it if it didn’t stop.

And now he finally had the answer he’d been angling for, and it only left him with more questions. Had Tywin just been manipulating him? Was he sharpening Robb as a sword to control the North because he seemed like the right tool for the job—or was there anything more to it? Was he being helped or only used? And the one he hadn’t been able to answer ever since he heard the news of Lannister’s death: how the fuck should he feel? It wasn’t as if he’d ever been stupid enough to really trust the man, so why didn’t any of this feel clear to him?

All the thoughts spun through his mind in seconds, and he didn’t have the time to ponder them properly now.

“I bear no ill will toward your house,” Tommen continued. “If you are willing to let the past remain where it is, you will leave here a free man today.”

Robb let the words echo in his head until he believed they were real. He looked at Tommen’s face—earnest and kind—and Margaery’s, adorned in a gentle, detached smile, then over at Cersei’s, with her narrow eyes and permanent sneer. It was Tommen he knelt to, not her, and it didn’t hurt as much as kneeling to his brother had. “I am willing, Your Grace.”

“You swear your fealty?” Cersei snapped.

Robb did not look at her. “House Stark accepts Tommen Baratheon as our rightful king and will serve at his command.”

“I am pleased to hear it,” Tommen told him.

“Your Grace,” Robb started, looking between him and Queen Margaery, “my sister—”

“Of course,” Margaery said, with a small gasp as if she hadn’t thought of it, and she put her hand on Tommen’s arm, who probably actually hadn’t thought of it. “Lady Sansa’s husband has been disloyal since they were wed and has now fled the city as a murderer. She must not be made to remain here alone.”

Cersei’s expression had become even more sour, but she sipped her wine and did not speak.

“The arrangements will be made,” Tommen said. “Lady Sansa will return with you to Winterfell.”

Perhaps, Robb thought, he really could serve this king. “Thank you, Your Graces,” he said, bending his head.

“Thank you, Lord Stark,” Margaery said, in her calm, lilting voice.

“See that they have a capable escort and provisions for the journey,” Tommen instructed one of his men.

Robb looked back up again and said, “The North will not forget your kindness.”

There must have still been a bit of pride in him, because when he stood to leave the throne room, Lord Robb Stark hoped that he would never have to kneel to anyone again.

Chapter 28: One Last Night

The night before they were due to leave, Robb didn’t feel like sleeping. All the preparations had been made, and he was supposed to stay over in Sansa’s apartment, which was much more spacious and luxurious than his small simple room. But he’d slept there for a few nights already and couldn’t take it anymore. Being in such a nice, comfortable place was making him feel immensely trapped and antsy, and he knew that didn’t make any sense, but he couldn’t shake it.

His sister had a collection of things she still wanted to pack, because she might as well get something out of all this and bring pretty things back to Winterfell, she said. So with her blessing, he left and went down to see the horses. Since he was a titled noble again and not a prisoner anymore, he didn’t even need a guard to go there now.

He was greeted by the familiar soft sounds of the animals, their gentle snuffling and hooves pawing the hay. Robb’s favorite horse, a beautiful grey mare with wise, dark eyes, greeted him with a quiet nicker, and as he stroked her neck he felt immediately soothed.

Then, from one of the lesser-used side supply rooms, there was a muffled thud and an unfamiliar curse in a familiar voice. Robb hesitated, then walked over to the room, which went suspiciously silent as soon as his footsteps began to sound on the floor. But the door wasn’t locked, so he cracked it open and peered inside.

“Are you, uh…all right?” Robb’s eyes darted around the room, which was lit up with wall torches and currently featured a very new assortment of supplies.

“Yes,” Jeryd said, standing up very carefully from where he was crouched in the room’s center. “I just knocked one over, but it didn’t break. Come in, if you want.”

“What are you doing? I mean, I can see, but...”

“What would you like?” Jeryd spread his hands out to the array of bottles on the floor. There must have been dozens. “Stormbrandy? Dragon’s breath? Wildflower mead from the Vale? Firewhiskey? Name it. It took me a couple trips last night, but I got it all before anyone else had the idea to raid the Tower.”

“This was all his? Never knew Lord Lannister had such a taste for liquor,” Robb commented, closing the door behind him. “Wine, on occasion, but…”

“He didn’t touch the stuff himself,” Jeryd told him. “This is the stash he kept for meetings with nobles, foreign dignitaries…well, anyone whose inhibitions he thought it might be useful to lower, really. He liked to account for a wide variety of tastes.”

Robb rolled his eyes. “That makes a lot more sense.”

“There’s nothing more valuable than a loose tongue in the mouth of power,” Jeryd said, as if he were reciting it, because he was.

“Did he have any winterwine?” Robb hadn’t tasted that in far too long.

Jeryd stepped gingerly through the bottles, trying not to knock any more over. “I think I saw it over…” He held one up by its neck. “Here.”

Robb uncorked it. The aroma of the deep red liquid made him feel like he was back north already. Winterwine was brewed with an assortment of northern fruits—frostberries, elderberries, currants—and spiced with cinnamon and cloves. It always made you feel warm from the inside out. He took a swig, then handed the bottle to Jeryd. “Try it.”

The boy sipped it himself. “Not bad. I’ve had better. My plan was to sample them all by the end of the state’s official mourning period.” He lifted the bottle of amber-colored liquid in his other hand. “Try this one. It’s my favorite so far. Seafoam rum from Braavos.”

“That’s the best idea you’ve ever had,” Robb said, and took it. Although he had never been aboard a ship, he thought the liquor tasted like that. Not bitter and salty like the ocean, but like sailing. Like it had been aged in a cask made of weathered driftwood and infused with the fresh sweetness of the sea air, or perhaps that was vanilla.

“It’s probably actually the worst idea I’ve ever had,” Jeryd said, “but now is the time to do it, so I am.”

Robb’s eyes roamed over all the bottles. He had certainly never known about the stash or what it was for. “You must have known a lot about him.”

“I knew what I was told,” Jeryd answered, “and I didn’t need to know what I wasn’t told. Simple as that.”

Robb picked up a new bottle, recognizing it as an herbal spirit from the Riverlands, a refreshing blend of watermint and sweetgrass. He lifted it in Jeryd’s direction. “I have to tell you. You’re a really good fucking squire.”

Jeryd was still holding the winterwine, so he raised that in return. “I know.” He took another sip. “This is actually growing on me a bit.”

“I wondered once if he knew your name,” Robb said. “I’m sure he did, it’s just that I never heard him use it. Or Garrick’s.”

“Or yours,” Jeryd said. “Maybe he forgot them. I don’t care if he did or not. What difference would it have made?”

“None, I suppose.”

Jeryd tried Robb’s bottle and looked contemplative. “Gods, it would have sounded strange. ‘Jeryd, do this. Robb, do that.’ I’d have thought he was possessed.”

“Shit,” Robb said. “Now that you say it like that, you’re right.”

“See?” Jeryd handed back the Riverlands spirit. “I don’t know about that one. Tastes a little medicinal.”

“Then you grew up with nicer medicines than me,” Robb said. He was quiet for a moment. “What are you going to be now? A squire without a knight?”

“A squire with a knight,” Jeryd replied. “Reassigned for a couple years. Then knighted myself by twenty. Kingsguard by twenty-five.”

“Isn’t that a touch young for a Kingsguard appointment?” Robb queried.

“Be that as it may,” Jeryd said. “Kingsguard by twenty-five. Sooner if I earn it faster.”

Robb felt a sudden flash of envy for it: the clarity with which Jeryd could see the future unfurling in front of him. Things had been like that for him, too, once. But his own future didn’t entirely feel that way anymore.

“I heard your news, too,” Jeryd said suddenly. “Should I call you Lord Stark now?”

“Yes,” Robb said, deadpan.

“Fuck off,” Jeryd replied, swaying a bit before steadying himself and trading the wine for a dark bottle on the floor labeled blackwater brandy in an elaborate script.

“That’s ‘fuck off, Lord Stark,’ to you,” Robb scolded. 

“Now you sound like him,” Jeryd said.

The conversation was making Robb wonder something. “Did you like working for Lord Tywin?”

“He taught me a lot,” the boy answered. “I’m sure the next knight will too. To be honest, I don’t care about whether I like something. I care about whether I’m good at it.”

Robb side-eyed him. “Way to dodge the question.”

“Fine,” Jeryd said. “Then yes. I’m glad I squired Lord Tywin, because he was very demanding and he made me very good at it. Like you already admitted yourself, so I don’t want to hear you try and take it back.”

“Good thing you warned me,” Robb said. “I was going to try.”

“When Lord Lannister took me on, he said I would get what I put in, and I have,” Jeryd said, and for a moment it was hard to tell if his eyes were glazed over with memories or alcohol. Either way, he quickly shook it off and said, “I’ll be leaving with the honor guard to Casterly Rock in a few days. Escorting his bones. And then I suppose that will be that.” He took a swig from the inky black bottle.

After Robb had tried it, they agreed the brandy tasted in equal measure like caramel and tar. Standing was rapidly becoming more difficult, so they both carefully crossed the field of bottles to the room’s edge and sat on the floor to safely continue their tests. Cloudberry ambrosia tasted like a mountain rainstorm and became Robb’s new favorite.

“Wouldn’t a mountain rainstorm just taste like water?” Jeryd asked, sounding skeptical.

Robb shook his head pityingly. “If you can’t use your imagination, I can’t help you.”

Other than comparing notes on the flavor profiles, they drank in silence for a little while, until Jeryd asked, “Do you miss the North?”

“All the time,” Robb answered.

“Good,” Jeryd said. “Because this time you should stay there. Bring an army south again and I’ll kick its arse myself.”

“Well, now I’m going to have to,” Robb returned, aware that his words were starting to slur as much as Jeryd’s just had. “Because I would just be so delighted to see you try.”

Jeryd pulled the cork out of the wildflower mead. “You always were an arrogant prick.”

With a swiftness the other youth obviously hadn’t expected, Robb seized the bottle out of his hand and stole the first swig, which did indeed taste like both wildflowers and mead. “Then I suppose we have more in common than I thought.”

Although Jeryd was not someone who laughed easily, often, or for very long, he started laughing then. And this time, he didn’t stop himself, and Robb couldn’t help but join in.

Once they had well and truly lost track of which bottles they had tried and which they hadn’t, Robb dizzily fumbled for the supply room door, and Jeryd crawled out behind him into the stables and promptly passed out in a pile of hay.

Robb rolled himself up in a horse blanket and followed suit.

He woke to soft dust-swirling sunlight streaming through the cracks in the wooden beams of the walls, the gentle snorts and rhythmic shifting hooves of the horses, the comforting scents of hay and musk, the enveloping fog of animal warmth, the even more enveloping fog of the ache in his head. Without even looking, he knew that Jeryd would already be gone. And when he did look, he was right.

Robb said his farewells to the horses and left the stables for the last time.

But he had said one more farewell than he’d needed to. Before they left, the master of horse at his stable brought Robb’s favorite mare out to the departure party, handed him the reins, patted the horse on the neck, and disappeared again without saying a word. Robb had become acquainted with the man only well enough to know he was a taciturn fellow who never spoke when it wasn’t necessary. It hadn’t been necessary today. Robb had never even told him that the grey mare was his favorite.

When Robb had arrived to King’s Landing, carted in to the sounds of jeering in the streets, his head had been full of hatred and revenge. One by one, his foes had been taken from him. Joffrey. Theon. Tywin. They had all somehow managed to die before Robb could kill them. Maybe that explained the emptiness in him: it was a gaping hole of unfulfilled vengeance. Or perhaps the fires of revenge would only have burned him blacker and emptier and left him colder once the embers had gone out.

He didn’t look back at the city as he and Sansa rode away.

Chapter 29: The North Remembers

Once they were far enough down the kingsroad that it would have been highly impractical to turn back, Sansa looked over at Robb from her horse and said, as if she were starting a polite conversation over afternoon tea, “Lord Baelish came to say goodbye to me last night.”

Robb’s blood went hot and then cold and then hot again. While he’d been off getting drunk, that—that weasel had come and tried to take advantage. And yet again, Sansa’s big brother hadn’t been there to protect her. He felt a whole new rush of shame and hate in him. “Sansa, are you all right? I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, what did he do?”

“Well, first he tried to convince me to run off with him instead,” Sansa explained, still in the same teatime tone, as if she weren’t bothered about it at all. “When that failed, I suppose he thought it might be his last chance to take me to bed, so he tried that next.”

It was exactly as Robb had feared. Fuck, fuck, fuck—he really had failed her. He looked down at his horse, then back at the road and their small party of assigned escorts. This mare was a fast one, he knew her well. Maybe if he rode through the night, he could go do what needed to be done and be back without causing much of a delay. “The bastard, Sansa, you should have told me sooner, what happened, did he hurt you—”

“I stabbed him,” she said primly, drawing up her skirts just high enough for Robb to see the sheath strapped to her calf, holding a beautiful blade with rose vines carved up the handle. A parting gift from the Queen of Thorns, no doubt.

Robb stared at her in shock. “You—what? Littlefinger’s dead? Then we’ll…have to…” He looked back at the road for a different reason now, expecting goldcloaks to ride up behind them at any moment to haul them back for a murder trial.

“I didn’t say I killed him, Robb, I only stabbed him,” Sansa said, slowly and distinctly, as if she didn’t remember him being this dim. “And you don’t have to worry. He would never admit to anyone that he got stabbed by a little girl, except maybe to whatever back-alley doctors he has on call for his whorehouse. He’s too proud for that. Especially because of where I stabbed him.”

Robb’s eyes stayed wide in his shock for a few moments before squinting in mirthful surprise and pride. Although their monthly conversations had proven that she’d obviously grown stronger and more resilient after everything she’d experienced, he’d still had an image in his head of his sister as a bit of a princess, a lady, a damsel needing protection and rescue. That clearly wasn’t the Sansa on horseback next to him now. “Where did you stab him?” he asked through his grin.

Sansa tossed her hair back and turned up her nose a little. “It isn’t proper for a lady to say.”

It felt better than ever to laugh together now, with the rats’ nest of a city behind them and the open road ahead.

Robb supposed that hadn’t been his story to finish either.

 

The travelers made good time, keeping to themselves and camping off the road to maintain a lower profile. Ravens had been sent to Riverrun and the Wall before their departure, but otherwise they thought it would be best for their journey not to be overly public.

Word must have spread a little further anyway, though, because after a few weeks of travel up the kingsroad in the Crownlands and through the swamps of the Neck, they were met just past the abandoned holdfast of Moat Cailin in the North by a new escort of men.

Shoulders straight, Robb dismounted his horse and walked straight up to Lord Jon Umber, who was still twice his size and probably always would be, even when he was stooped and grey. The Greatjon looked down at him for a moment, stony-faced and grim, and when Robb held his eyes and didn’t shrink away, the man put his arm out and said, “Lord Stark.”

Robb was glad he hadn’t said, “Your Grace,” because the Greatjon had been the first to proclaim him king. He looked at the giant man’s scarred hand, missing two fingers from the night Grey Wind had helped convince him that Robb was worth fighting for, and clasped his forearm. “Lord Umber.”

The Greatjon said, “The North is yours.”

And just to make sure they were clear with one another, Robb told him, “The North is King Tommen’s. I bent the knee.”

He’d bent it three times, in fact, to three different Lannisters. He thought that the northern lord might rage, call him a coward, say that if he had any honor he would have let them take his head and if he had any courage he’d be raring to march south again right now. The Greatjon was not one to hide his true feelings.

“Aye, well,” Umber replied, calmer than Robb had ever seen him. “If there’s a lord in the North who can say he didn’t bend his, I’ll let him take it up with you.”

By the way he’d said it, Robb was guessing he knew the answer. “Is there?”

“Nay, there’s no lord,” the northerner said. And then his booming laugh echoed off the flat field of shallow snow that surrounded them. “Only a wee girl. But they had the good sense to leave Bear Island alone.”

Robb felt a small glow of pride. He wouldn’t want to tangle with Bear Island either. “If Lyanna Mormont demands my head, I’ll give it to her without a fuss.”

The Greatjon looked very pleased. Then he pretended to start counting, and although he could have used his other hand, he chose the one with three fingers, purely for the jest of the thing. “You bent it to Lord Tywin, of course. And then Joffrey, the cunt.” He paused for a moment to spit on the ground. “Heard those were both quite the spectacle. How was the third time, with young Tommen?”

“The third was nice,” Robb told him, a smile creeping onto his face. “Very dignified.”

“Well, let me tell you my own story about kneeling,” the Greatjon said, his eyes crinkling mirthfully. “After they’d gotten the chains on you and carted you out of that circle of corpses I heard you and the direwolf made in your last stand, they spent a couple of hours rounding up all the northern lords in the army. Lined us up on our feet, neat as can be, and I thought it was about to be our heads all prettily in a row next. Then the good Lord Hand showed up and eyeballed us a bit, in that cold green way of his, more like a snake than a lion…”

“I know the exact way you mean,” Robb interjected.

“Aye,” the Greatjon said. “Doesn’t give you much confidence for your life, a look like that. Then he said that any lord who didn’t bend the knee wouldn’t live to see nightfall, but the first who did would be named Warden of the North while he borrowed our other one.”

Tywin Lannister, Robb thought, and his fucking games. “So who was first?”

Lord Umber looked offended. “You can’t tell, by the new airs I’ve put on? The poise? The gravitas?”

The Greatjon Robb had known would not have used the word gravitas. “Greatjon, are you telling me you bent the knee first?”

 “Didn’t want Roose fucking Bolton to beat me to it, did I, the creepy bastard with his flayed-man banners,” Umber said, sounding much more like the man Robb had known. “I think he wanted to preserve some dignity and didn’t expect a competition, so he did it slow and proper, like he was being fucking knighted, and gave me the chance. I didn’t particularly give a monkey’s arse how proud I looked while my knees were smashing into the bloody ground.”

“I hope you didn’t injure yourself too badly, Lord Umber,” Robb said, looking him up and down. “There’s not an insignificant distance between your knees and the ground.”

When the large man’s roar of a laugh ricocheted off the snow this time, Robb laughed with him and received a bone-rattling pat on the back.

“After that, Lord Tywin came over to me and made a comment about all the blood I was soaked in,” Lord Umber continued. “Told him I’d faced off with Gregor Clegane a bit before the end and hadn’t had a chance to tidy up much after I cleaved in his mad dog’s skull.”

“Seven hells, did you really?” Robb asked, his spine still settling back into place. “I can’t wait to hear the songs they’ve written about the battle of the giants.” He thought about Mikken’s aspiring bard son and wondered what he might have titled it.

“Best fight I’ve ever had,” the giant said. “Worth every scar I got in return. And Lannister didn’t even blink to hear it. He said that it was no small feat to bring down a Mountain, so as far as he was concerned it proved I was the right man for my new job.”

“Very understanding of him,” Robb said. “Did he say anything else?”

“He told the group of us that if you were smart enough to let him let you live, and we were smart enough to go home and mind our manners, he’d give you back in two or three years,” the northern lord recounted. “That as long as he was reasonably certain the young wolf wouldn’t bite him again, he’d let you become an old wolf. Man had a real way with words, I’ll grant him that.”

“I’ll grant it too,” Robb agreed. His mind was vibrating. So this had always been what he’d wanted to do?

“Also said to keep it to ourselves, because it was the king’s idea and His Grace just hadn’t thought of it yet, so it wouldn’t do for the words to reach his ears too early.”

“Awfully clever of the king,” Robb said, picturing Joffrey’s smug face and wondering what sorts of mind games Tywin would have had to play with him to seed such a notion.

“Then after the whole little ceremony of the surrender, Lord Tywin did the strangest thing,” Lord Umber recalled slowly.

Robb tilted his head. “What was that?”

“He called me Warden, and offered me his bloody hand,” the Greatjon said, “and fucking helped me stand back up.”

“Did he,” Robb said, because his thoughts were still racing so fast that he didn’t know which one of them to say. He helped me stand back up too didn’t seem to capture it.

“He did,” Umber confirmed. “And then he said that Joffrey was an evil little fucker who’d have been better for the world as a stain on Jaime’s sheets, and that Ned should have been an old wolf too.”

Robb laughed again, harder this time. “Why, Lord Umber, I’d say that part sounds more like your way with words.”

The Greatjon pretended to think, and then his face spread out in a grin. “Aye, I’ve mixed it up. That one was me.”

“But your head’s still on,” Robb pointed out, “so maybe he agreed.”

“He didn’t disagree as such, but he gave me the same snakelike look as before and said, calm as you like, ‘as a one-time courtesy, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you.’ And then invited me to say it again a little louder, since he hadn’t quite caught it, but since I do actually prefer my head on I had enough sense to decline.”

“Well, calling the king an incestuous bastard right to his grandfather’s face even once isn’t something many men have done,” Robb said. “You obviously had to live to tell the tale to your own grandchildren.”

Acting taken aback, Umber asked, “Don’t tell me you were there an entire year and managed not to say it once?”

“I did sort of say it once, actually,” Robb said, remembering the game they’d played to practice for the throne room—where his performance had helped decide whether or not Robb was going to be smart enough to let Tywin let him live. “Called him Joffrey Lannister. Except I got a handprint across the face when I did it.”

“Well worth it,” the Greatjon said approvingly.

“It was.”

“Maybe he’d have tried slapping me too, if he wouldn’t have had to fetch a footstool to reach high enough.”

Robb snorted. “Isn’t that an image?”

He got a gentler clap on the arm then, and his bones stayed in place. “While we’re on the subject of that day, Lannister did say one more thing before he left that you might be interested to hear,” Lord Umber said, and Robb thought he saw a flash of pain in the man’s eyes.

“All right,” Robb said. “Tell me.”

“He said that it wasn’t really a high priority, but that as Warden of the North, maybe I’d have the sway to convince the Night’s Watch to give him a refund.”

Hesitantly, Robb asked, “For…?”

This time, the pain lingered a bit longer in Umber’s eyes. “Lord Eddard’s passage to the Wall, since it seems Lannister gold paid for the wagon that was ready to take him after he confessed.”

Robb swallowed hard. Lord Tywin had told him his father would be “shivering at the Wall” if it were up to him, but he hadn’t known there had been actual plans in place and paid for. “So did you get him his money back?”

“Well, I told him I’d look into it, but that I was glad he’d said about priorities, because I’d stick it on the list right after teaching cats to fly so I could use them instead of ravens.”

That coaxed another smile out of Robb. “You were really trying to make him regret the Warden game, weren’t you?”

“Oh, aye,” Umber agreed. “And maybe he did. But he said that on second thought, a refund wouldn’t be necessary, because his blood took something from the North that didn’t need to be taken. And before he hopped back on that great big white warhorse of his, he said the part I kept thinking about whenever I started wondering if we should say to the hells with his warnings and send someone after you and your sister. He said, ‘Sounds like a debt to me.’ The gods know I can be a bit slow with these things, but I didn’t really get the sense he’d ever been talking about money at all. Then the old bastard wished me luck with the cats and fucked off.”

Robb’s eyes drifted over the Greatjon’s shoulder to watch a hawk as it soared toward them in the grey northern skies, and he swallowed hard. All of a sudden, everything made sense.

Lannister had meant to do this before he’d even really met him, at least not in any capacity other than bloodspattered and shellshocked and furious on his knees after the last battle, a week shy of eighteen, yielding his titles to save his people and expecting a blade to fall, so lost in the fog of war and hate and grief that he barely remembered it now. When they’d still been enemies. Before Tywin had started to like Robb and certainly before the feeling was at all mutual. It hadn’t just been about him. This had all been part of something bigger.

Lord Tywin had never said it to him in so many words, that simply wasn’t his way. But he had told him. Robb just hadn’t been listening.

He’d said, when Robb had thought he’d prefer an execution to a squireship: “It surprises me that you would rather let the Stark name and legacy die out than exercise a little humility and see where it takes you.”

When Robb had asked about Winterfell: “Perhaps I’ll tell you to sit there again one day.”

The evening Robb hadn’t stabbed him: “Be whoever you’d like. It’s no great mystery whose face is in your head when I say that.”

The night he’d lifted a toast to his father’s name.

There was a sentence he had never said, but that Robb could finally hear as clearly as if he had. “Your father’s life was not Joffrey’s to end, and the legacy he built was not mine to destroy.”

He had looked at Ned Stark’s son of the North, who men had been willing to bleed for before he could even grow a full beard, and had seen something there that he hadn’t wanted to stamp out. An experienced general had been outmaneuvered again and again by a green boy—and it must have made him wonder, with potential like that, how much more could be made of the man.

And because his grandson had already deprived the North of one Stark they had admired and respected and loved, Tywin hadn’t wanted to take another. Quite the contrary, really: he thought he'd owed a debt to the North, and to the dead, and he’d been resolved to pay it if he could. From the beginning, he had intended to give Ned Stark’s son the chance to finish growing up, in a place where nothing was expected from him but that, and then, once it was safe for him to do it, to give him back to his destiny.

Robb wondered if he’d thought of it on the spot, after Robb had renounced his titles, clenched his jaw, grasped a handful of Grey Wind’s bloody fur, told himself don’t die with your eyes closed, and bared his neck for the bite of cold steel. If his life had started over in the pause before he heard the equally steel-cold words—“Take him”—instead. If Lannister had ironed out more of the details in the weeks that followed the rebellion’s end. If he’d become more confident in his idea when he met a defiant boy spitting venom in his war tent, because that was something he knew where to start with.

Tywin had been up for the challenge he must have known the task would be. He’d trained squires and bridled kings before. Just never both at the same time, and never quite like this.

Robb could only assume that over the next year or two, his life at King’s Landing would have continued to change. Maybe their debates in the Tower would have focused more on current events and the North. Maybe eventually Robb would have been taken to court to see how well he could play the political games there and publicly show that wolf and lion could walk together, although he assumed he would have chafed at that and wound up preferring the company of his stable horses to southern nobles.

At some point, he might even have been freed from the squire’s uniform and given a new transition position to let him test his independence again. Then, knowing Tywin, he’d probably have been assigned some nice, pretty, acceptable wife from the Westerlands to further strengthen the ties that bound them and add a personal stake to any future temptations to resurrect the northern secession movement.

But in the end, no matter what the specifics of the in-between period was, at some point Robb would have wound up right where he was now: going home. Going home better than the day he’d left. Better equipped to think, and survive, and negotiate, and rule.

And even if part of the plan had still been for self-serving reasons—because of course Lannister would also have wanted to build himself a strong ally in the North, hone a strategic mind to make plans with, and gain the respect and even the trust of an intellectual equal who had the courage to challenge him when not many people would dare—right now Robb couldn’t manage to figure out how there was a single thing wrong with any of that, and he didn’t feel ashamed to have valued it anymore.

Tywin had been investing in Robb’s future, and his own, and Joffrey’s then Tommen’s, and the North’s, and the future peace and prosperity of the realm, all at once. The war had ended, and before the bodies of the dead had even gone cold, Lannister had been smart enough to find a way for all the survivors to win.

And all Robb had needed to do was be smart enough to let him, and willing to accept that sometimes leaders had to follow too.

At first, Lord Tywin had demanded his obedience and deference, like a trademaster might from his apprentice, or a foster father from his ward—or, well, a knight from his squire—so Robb would understand that he didn’t have a choice. He was not going to be allowed to be too proud to accept help, or too stubborn to grow up, or too intent on leaving before he was done. But then, once that part of it had been clear, Tywin had started earning his respect, more like a peer from a peer.

And he had never tried to demand his trust. It seemed like he’d wanted Robb to decide, on his own, whether to give him that at all. Whether to remain his enemy or become his ally. Robb had started making that decision when he was offered the sword. Again, when he hadn’t used Tywin’s night of being drunk and vulnerable against him and hadn’t tried to escape. Again, in the biggest test of all, the night he’d put his dinner knife down. He’d kept deciding, little by little, ever since.

Throughout it all, part of him had been waiting for a betrayal that wasn’t going to come unless it came from him. He wasn’t going to be in danger unless he’d shown he was determined to be the danger. So Tywin had given him the opportunities to show where he stood, and had rewarded him with more and more of his own trust in return.

Lord Tywin had never wanted any credit and certainly not any thanks for what he was doing or why. He had just done it. And no, he hadn’t exactly held Robb’s hand through it, because the Lion of Casterly Rock did not hold hands or say things like “come with me, you’ll be all right.” He was more the type to say “read this book, and maybe I’ll kill you later.” And it had probably only been a bonus for him if he’d started to think that Robb was smart, and brave, and funny.

For his own part, looking back with new eyes, Robb knew that if he’d been offered a kind hand at the beginning, he would have smacked it away. That wasn’t what he’d needed. What he had needed was to be knocked down hard from the soaring heights of the pride and ego and arrogance that had lost him the war. He’d needed to stay down and be allowed to look at the dirt for a little while. Then he’d needed to be told “Get up, you aren’t done yet.” He’d needed to suffer and struggle and do the hardest work himself. And finally, when he was ready, he had needed to stand back up and find that his footing was stronger for the fall.

Tywin Lannister had read him like a book and met him where he was.

Robb Stark was on his fucking feet now.

Lord Umber glanced up at the hawk too as it passed overhead, its wings slicing through the air high above them in the moment of quiet. Robb reached into his pocket and felt around for the wooden rabbit. He had thought about symbolically burning it in the campfire on the first night of their journey home, now that he wasn’t the rabbit anymore. But something in him was suddenly glad he hadn’t. He would find a drawer or somewhere to put it at Winterfell, along with Tywin’s gold coin: the only things he’d brought north, other than his horse and himself.

The skies looked like they were brewing up a storm of their own, and Robb hoped the Greatjon would say something else to distract him before he cried in front of twenty hardened northern warriors.

“In any case,” Umber remarked, right on schedule, “I’m glad Lord Tywin was considerate enough to die earlier than planned and accelerate the damned timeline. It’s not right, keeping a direwolf in the south so long.”

“And I’m glad I didn’t bite him,” Robb said, as a few snowflakes swirled down from the clouds. “It would have felt wrong to die somewhere warm.”

“Did Lannister manage to pay his debts?”

Robb took his hand out of his pocket and showed Umber the coin. “As far as I’m concerned, he did.”

They parted to mount their horses.

While they rode together, the Greatjon filled him in on the past year. As acting Warden, he had collected taxes on behalf of Winterfell and made sure its smallfolk didn’t starve. The soldiers of Last Hearth had stopped in on their way back north and discovered that Wintertown’s people had gone and seen to the dead as soon as the Ironborn had fled at the news of the northern army’s imminent return, so they had all received the proper rites and honors.

The castle itself was in a bit of disrepair after the fire and the lack of anyone to maintain it, but work crews from other houses had volunteered to come and help with that now that it would be occupied again, and some were already en route. Lord Umber had actually planned to temporarily move down to Winterfell and start the restoration later this year, so it would be in a better state when Robb was released. But since the homecoming was a touch earlier than anyone had expected, they’d need all hands on deck for a bit.

It was a level of kindness Robb simply couldn’t feel that he deserved, and he said so as he stumbled through several different versions of thanks. Then, he knew it might come off as weakness to ask, but that was all right, because he wanted to know. “You don’t want to petition to remain Warden of the North, Lord Umber? Do you still trust me, after I led the war to ruin?”

He thought he might see the Greatjon’s expression shutter as the memories of all of Robb’s mistakes chased away whatever respect he may have still had for him. And Robb didn’t have a wolf on hand now to help him get it back.

But that wasn’t what he saw.

“You know I never shied away from telling you when I thought you were being foolish, in the war,” the large man told him. “And I can’t say I’m a great deal shyer now. If the gods are good you might heed seasoned counsel more often, but the North knows one Warden, and his name is Stark.”

Robb held his gaze and nodded. “Then let us pray the gods are good.”

Notes:

"Joffrey, when your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you."
-Tywin Lannister, A Storm of Swords

Chapter 30: The Legacies They Leave

Notes:

This is (mostly) the conclusion of the main story, but stay tuned for the two-part epilogue...in which I will attempt to write the ending to Game of Thrones! So if you have any “what about [character]?” questions, I’ll just say: see if you still have them after that.

Robb stayed out by the campfire longer than anyone else that night, feeling the familiar bite of the cold at his back and staring at the red glow of heat rippling through the embers, because he wanted some time alone to think.

He couldn’t stop wondering what had been in Tywin’s head, all those months. Whether he had been on his own journey too, somewhere within himself. What it had meant every time he let Robb catch a small glimpse beneath the shield.

He wondered if when Lannister looked at him, he’d seen something he wished he had.

Maybe he’d seen it in Robb on his knees in the mud, ready to give up his life to spare further suffering for his people. Maybe he’d seen it in his men, following the King of the North into a battle against all odds of winning, with his and Ned’s names on their lips.

Maybe even before then, he’d understood that it was more than a cold sense of familial duty that had sent Robb south to save his father and then avenge him. And that it was more than a lust for power that had made him fight to free the North from Joffrey’s tyranny.

Had Lord Lannister seen under the Young Wolf as a wartime enemy, to the young man who wanted to be a strong, honorable leader for his family and his kingdom? Had he seen another layer down, to a boy who wanted to be like his father and felt a little lost trying to navigate a world without him?

When Tywin had looked at his own family, and cursed their weakness and uselessness and rejections of the legacy he’d been trying to force them to carry—had he begun to understand why there were better tools than fear to build lives with?

Maybe the wine had helped him regret it the night after his grandson’s death, with Ned Stark’s legacy sitting across from him. Ned, who hadn’t been wealthy or politically savvy or cunning in all the ways that Tywin was, but who even in his own death was rich in the genuine loyalty of his bannermen and the true devotion of his children. Ned, who had possessed the things that Tywin could not buy and could not command anyone to give him.

Not that the man hadn’t tried to command something like it. Because when he’d made Tyrion marry Sansa, and asked Robb if he wouldn’t like to see an heir with Stark blood at Casterly Rock, he must have actually been telling him what he wanted.

Since Lannister was not a man who liked spending too much time looking back, he’d been focused on looking forward. On rewriting his legacy with a new pen. On not repeating his own mistakes, which had already led to his own failures and which he didn’t believe could be unmade whether he took the time to regret them or not.

But in the end, he’d only been covering those old mistakes with new ones, because he had never fully sat himself down to brush the grime off the cover and mourn over the stained chapters he’d already put in the book.

Maybe it had been his fatal error, Robb thought. Because if Lord Tywin had invested more time into interrogating his own regrets, and had listened to the things his children wanted instead of trying to threaten them into obedience like he’d always done before, and felt remorse for how he’d treated them in the past, and swallowed his pride enough to apologize, and showed he was capable of change in the future—maybe he would still be alive.

Robb might have been able to teach him how, if he’d had more time.

Or maybe he had been teaching him already.

Because Tywin had been watching him do it all himself—reflecting, and regretting, and mourning, and changing. More than that, he’d been helping him do it.

After all, he hadn’t been trying to remake him in his own image; he’d said that much himself. Lord Tywin had been teaching Robb, challenging him, broadening his perspectives, improving his weak areas—but never trying to make him abandon the values already instilled in him by his father. Never trying to make him into someone dishonest or selfish or cruel: into a man Ned wouldn’t have been proud to call his son. And, shit, Tywin had even given it a try himself—not being dishonest or selfish or cruel, with Robb, and maybe he had even started to like how it felt.

He wondered if when Lord Tywin had seen him cry, he’d somehow understood that it wasn’t weakness that made his tears fall, but the strength to face himself and grieve the harm he’d done. Or that the kind of deep pain Robb carried could only come from deep love and deep loss.

Maybe even a man like Lord Tywin might have been coming to understand something that men like Robb’s father had always known: that loyalty was a better tool than fear, and loyalty was most valuable when it was fairly earned and freely given. When it was proven not just in word or deed but both. When it wasn’t just a tool, but something real.

Maybe for once, he’d been trying to fairly earn it.

Maybe by the end, whenever Tywin sent Robb home, it would have been real.

Craning his neck up to look at the stars, he thought about Jeryd and the honor guard, who were traveling west with Tywin Lannister’s bones, and about his children, who were not. About Tyrion, sailing east a kinslayer in the ultimate rejection of his legacy. About Jaime, who had chosen not to come home to a duty he’d always resented being expected to live up to and had joined the Kingsguard to escape. Even about Cersei, who for all her futile rage and spite had probably not shed one tear for her father’s passing.

When the embers dimmed and Robb’s eyes grew heavy, he crawled into his tent and fell asleep thinking about sons and daughters and the burdens they carry—and about fathers and the legacies they leave.

And for the first time in a long time, he wondered what kind of legacy he might leave.

 

A few nights later, as they sat around the fire, they heard a sudden rustling from the forest. Robb and some of the soldiers drew their swords, but as soon as he saw the bright yellow eyes that peered out of the leaves, he knew what owned them, and motioned for the others to lower their weapons as he sheathed his own.

The massive direwolf walked forward, lithe and graceful and unafraid. Robb felt his throat constrict as she approached him. She had grown so much since he’d last seen her as a pup, standing eye to eye with him now. “Hello, Nymeria,” he said, softly, and heard Sansa’s low, strangled cry behind him before she leapt forward, throwing her arms around the beast’s neck. It made some of the soldiers jumpy, Robb could tell, and he couldn’t blame them: a direwolf was terrifying if you’d never seen one up close before. “It’s all right,” he told them. “This is one of ours.”

He stepped forward to her side and stroked her fur, his heart aching like it might explode. Sansa had her face buried in Nymeria’s chest, but he could tell by the heave of her shoulders that she was weeping. It was the most either of them had seen of Arya in a long time.

“Is she alive?” he whispered to the wolf, feeling a bit foolish for it, but when she turned her head to meet his gaze again, Robb knew without a shadow of a doubt that Arya was.

When he stepped back and glanced toward the fire, he locked eyes with the Greatjon. The man protectively shielded his intact hand and grinned at him.

Nymeria didn’t stay for long, but most nights after that, they would see her yellow eyes in the forest again or hear her distant howls.

 

The land grew more and more familiar as they moved north, carrying more and more memories into Robb’s head. Of accompanying his father on visits to other houses of the north. Going on hunts with the men-at-arms. Exploring on horseback with Jon and Theon.

And then—there it was, with its stone-grey parapets rising in the distance. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, since he’d ridden up this hill and out of these pines before, but it was almost like he’d expected it all to vanish before they arrived, or for some trouble to waylay their journey at the last second and turn them back. It just hadn’t felt like it was really happening yet, going home.

He pulled up short when he saw it, and the rest of the party followed his lead. Something in him had at least expected it to look different, since everything had changed, but Winterfell looked as strong and solid from afar as the castle ever had. The walls and towers that had been raised up thousands of years ago by his ancestors. The place that held Robb’s past and the place where he’d build his future.

Robb glanced at Sansa, and she swallowed hard and gave him a nod, and they tapped their heels against their horses and rode on.

When he was close enough to crane his neck up at the outer wall rising eighty feet into the sky above them, he looked back down the path, and Nymeria was standing there, watching them with her wild intelligent eyes. Robb stared back at her for a long time, and then he dipped his head to her, and she turned and bounded away and did not look back.

Robb looked forward and signaled to the men to open the gate to Winterfell.

Something inside him had been hoping that when he rode through that gate, everything would immediately click back into place and he would know exactly who he was meant to be again, and how he was meant to be it. But as he crossed the threshold, the ache in his chest told Robb it was a question that would still take time to answer, and he had no one here to tell him anymore. He wondered if maybe he could have used another year in King’s Landing after all, to grow up just a little more.

King of the North, he thought, looking around. He wasn’t that anymore; at least that was a certain thing.

A cold wind howled through the charred stone courtyard.

More like lord of the ashes, now.

Robb looked at Sansa, and somewhere beneath her own sadness at seeing Winterfell this way after she’d been gone so long, empty and quiet and stained in soot, he saw the flicker of joy and hope in her eyes. “I’m really—” she breathed, “we’re really…”

He finished for her, feeling the spark of it light in him too. “Home.”

They dismounted their horses and walked into the keep. There was work to do. Jon had been notified of their release and sent a raven to the Greatjon with a message for Robb, saying he had news better shared in person and was sorry he couldn’t be there to meet them, but would ride down from the Wall when he could. Their mother, however, was already on her way from the Riverlands, so they had to get started on preparing some passably clean living quarters at least.

 

When Catelyn arrived to Winterfell a week after her children, Robb thought it was quite possible that he and Sansa would starve to death while they waited for the embrace to end. Fortunately, they did manage to survive the assault, and as soon as the air was back in all of their lungs, the questions and stories were spilling out of them.

Edmure’s death had left Cat as the legal heir to the Riverlands, and in the year-and-change since the end of the war, she had become Catelyn Tully again and embraced her new duties as the Lady of Riverrun. Sansa asked if she’d have to go back there soon, which doomed them both to being gathered into another tight hug while she said, “Uncle Brynden has it handled. As long as I’m needed more here than I’m needed there, I’m here.”

Because Robb was curious, he asked if she’d known anything about them for the past year, because he hadn’t pictured her being quite so peaceful and productive with her remaining children in captivity. Cat said the riverlords had been told the same thing as the northerners: that as long as there was peace—both from them and from Robb—his and Sansa’s lives and futures would not be in jeopardy. Robb was starting to feel like maybe the two of them were the only ones who hadn’t fucking known.

Then his mother rummaged in a saddlebag, pulled out an envelope, and showed him one of the papers that had arrived to Riverrun via a king’s raven every couple of months, sealed with wax and stamped with a lion. The paper itself was always blank, she said, but it was folded around a recently cut lock of his and Sansa’s hair, so she had known they were alive and healthy, and had also understood not to make any trouble, in case next time the thing that arrived was a rider and a box with a finger or an ear.

It was creative, Robb thought, and rather menacing, and oddly kind. He didn’t know anyone who could walk that line as finely as Tywin Lannister. Then he wondered if Lyle had ever asked what the haircut scraps were for. With a job like his, Lyle had probably been successful by not being overly curious when given strange instructions. Or maybe he had been in charge of sending the ravens too.

Catelyn turned back to her travel party, then, and withdrew a small wooden chest from one of the wagons. Her face was drawn tight with pain as she pressed it into Robb’s arms.

“You remember I had them sent north, before it all happened,” she said softly. “They made it as far as Greywater Watch. Howland Reed sent word he’d keep him safe until the time came to finish the journey. I stopped there on my way.” Then she looked around the courtyard sadly, and added, “His son and daughter disappeared after he sent them to Winterfell, before the invasion. He said to let him know if we find any trace of them.”

Feeling his throat constrict suddenly, Robb looked down at the box. He recognized it. When Tyrion had become the acting Hand, early in the war, he had ordered the bones returned to Ned’s widow at Riverrun. Just as a political gesture, they’d thought at the time. But now, he looked at Sansa and knew Tyrion had also meant it as a kindness.

“I’ll get a torch,” he managed. “We’ll take him to the crypts now and build the statue when we can.”

Robb didn’t try to hide the tears that streamed down his face while he carried his father to his final resting place. He knew just where to bring him: to the two other boxes he’d found the first morning he’d come into the crypts—the ones that sat beneath his uncle Brandon and aunt Lyanna’s tombs and were beautifully carved with Bran’s and Rickon’s names. When Robb set Ned’s box down between his brother and sister and his sons, Cat and Sansa each clasped one of his hands. Eddard Stark was finally home, and so were they.

When they were all ready to dry their eyes, they left the dead to their slumbers and went in search of a blazing hearth to warm the living travelers’ weary bones. Around the fire, they started making plans. Now that they were home, they had to focus on making it a home again.

And even if he couldn’t predict exactly what the future might hold, Robb knew that in time, and with patience, the banners of the direwolf would fly proudly once again.

Because the Starks had returned to Winterfell, and winter was coming.

Notes:

“Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king? When everyone was shouting King in the North, King in the North, I told myself...swore to myself...that I would be a good king, as honorable as father, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies. Now I can’t even tell one from the other. How did it all get so confused?”
- Robb Stark, A Storm of Swords

“The Stark boy is a child. No sword is strong until it’s been tempered.”
- Tywin Lannister, A Game of Thrones

"The winters are hard, but the Starks will endure. We always have."
- Eddard Stark, A Game of Thrones

Chapter 31: Winter Comes

Summary:

Epilogue, part one!

Notes:

Did someone order a total fan-service happy ending? Yes? Great! Let's write the Robb-Lives ending to Game of Thrones!

Fair warning: I am trying to pack a lot into these two epilogue chapters, so I hope it doesn't feel too rushed. This one is about 6k words. As always, I very much appreciate your thoughts and hope you enjoy!

Winterfell’s restoration was no small job, after the fire and over a year of subsequent neglect, but it was good to have something to keep them all busy. Robb didn’t end up having a whole lot of time to brood and navel-gaze about who he was; he only had time to be it. Somehow it felt like he didn’t have to try quite as hard to be himself now. Or to pretend to be something else.

The confidence that had once lived inside him as a young lord and leader returned to him swiftly, but it felt like a more measured version compared to before: less impetuous and brash, tempered with a better understanding that there were still things he didn’t understand. And better still, enhanced with the desire to seek out more information, the patience to wait until he had gathered it, and the humility to check himself and listen to people who actually had the relevant experience before he made decisions.

The restoration project was also a good thing because the Greatjon’s two youngest daughters came along with the work crew the Umbers sent to help. They could do everything a man could do, and looked better doing it—especially one of them, as far as Robb was concerned. Astrid Umber had inherited none of her father’s size but all of his spirit. She moved like a northern storm, wild and swift, with pale grey eyes and a thick braid of dark hair flecked with white like a midnight snowfall. And she managed to look equally graceful swinging a hammer or dancing whenever someone started to play a fiddle in the Great Hall, now that Winterfell was full of life again.

One day, Astrid saw him running—a habit he’d kept up along the trails in the wolfswood every day since his return—so she challenged him to a footrace and beat him handily. Since Robb supposed he couldn’t wrestle her over it, he fell in love with her instead. But he took his time acting on it until he’d decided, with counsel, that it would make sense for him to court a northerner as proof of where his loyalties lay, especially after everything House Umber had done for House Stark’s people.

When Robb asked the Greatjon for Astrid’s hand, the giant man said he appreciated that Robb was trying to abide by the ceremony of the thing, but they weren’t much of a folk for ceremony at Last Hearth, so it wasn’t him as needed to be asked. The Greatjon had also warned him, with a practiced air as if he’d said it to her suitors before, that he’d never been able to stop the girl from doing a single thing in her life once her mind was set, and that Robb wouldn’t be able to tell her what to do either. That only made Robb fall for her harder, and he noticed as he courted her that Astrid didn’t try telling him what to do either. Because maybe neither of them needed to be told anymore; they just needed someone to do it with.

Sansa also got along with the Umber girl immediately. It didn’t take long for Astrid to badger her into learning how to swordfight, but Robb’s sister returned her own demands: namely, that Astrid allow Sansa to do her hair and force her to wear one of the fancy dresses she’d brought from the south first. Watching them whirl around a frosty courtyard in a flurry of colorful skirts, hair either elaborately pinned up or cascading around their shoulders in soft waves as they clashed their blunted steel together, made Robb think they looked every bit the picture of northern warrior princesses, and Sansa didn’t even complain when she got dirty by the end.

On the day he finally worked up the courage to officially ask Astrid for her hand in the godswood, she agreed to marry him only if he could defeat her in single combat. But when they met back up in a courtyard an hour later and took their stances to settle the question with their families as witnesses, she let him knock the sword right out of her hand and said she supposed he’d won then. Lord Umber had doubled himself over laughing, said she must really like him because he’d never seen her throw a fight for any other man, and called Robb his son before they’d even chosen a day to say the vows by the heart tree.

 

Jon arrived to Winterfell a sennight before the wedding, and there was a hard, cold rain falling the day he came, which conveniently allowed both brothers to pretend that was the only reason their faces were wet after they let each other go. His promised news was indeed news, and he said he couldn’t stay for more than a few days after the ceremonies—because he was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch now (although according to his stories he’d taken a fair few knocks to the ground himself before he’d earned the mantle).

But that wasn’t even his news. He told them that winter was coming in more ways than one. Apparently the dead had risen, and the realm had about two years to prepare for an invasion led by the least dead-seeming dead one, who the rangers of the Watch had dubbed the Night King. There were already thousands of wights and White Walkers marching across the lands beyond the Wall. It wasn’t a threat the Night’s Watch could even begin to handle alone. Lord Stark quickly assured Lord Commander Snow that they wouldn’t have to. After Robb and Astrid had their simple wedding and a day of feasting, Jon headed back to the Wall and the Lord of Winterfell headed to his father’s—well, his—study, both carrying a shared mission.

As Warden of the North, Robb started by sending word to the other northern lords to prepare their people for the new danger coming their way, but he was met with no small amount of skepticism. At first, he wasn’t quite sure how to convince them he wasn’t addled in the head from the war, because he knew how it all sounded. Until Jon and some of his rangers managed to capture a wight to prove the tale. Robb led a small party out to meet the group from the Night's Watch, and then the brothers took their new skeletal friend on a friendly tour of the North, stopping at castles and holdfasts to do a little politicking—and to let the wight furiously snarl and snap its jaws until their hosts believed the thing wasn’t a puppet. After that, it didn’t take long for the North to rally behind the cause.

It was also a convenient opportunity to meet in person with each the houses Robb ruled as liege lord again, and to convince them that he was very much the opposite of addled after the war. And although he didn’t have a wolf at his side in the meetings, he had brought something just as intimidating along: a seven-foot-tall father-in-law who spent a lot of his time folding his arms and glaring.

Lyanna Mormont was the only one who openly glared back at the Greatjon, saying that she didn’t need to be bullied into loyalty to the King in the North, because she had never knelt to anyone else, and she didn’t find it particularly relevant that Robb insisted he wasn’t a king. The faceoff between the giant man and the tiny girl ended when Lord Umber gravely took a knee and called her the Queen of Bear Island.

 

Uniting the southern kingdoms took a little longer. The toast Robb had made to Tommen’s long life apparently hadn’t taken, and Cersei had been queen ever since her youngest stepped out a window following his wife’s death at his mother’s hands when the Great Sept of Baelor exploded in wildfire. It seemed the Tyrells had pricked her paws a little too deeply and used the militant branch of the Faith of the Seven against her when she attempted to reclaim too much influence over Tommen in the vacuum left by Tywin’s death. The line of succession had technically passed to Princess Myrcella, but she had fallen in love with her Dornish prince and her life there, and had sent a slew of letters and envoys announcing that she was abdicating the throne before she’d even sat on it.

Well—Cersei was queen, anyway, for a little over a year, until she made a snack for another queen’s dragons. The city was taken without much bloodshed when Daenerys Targaryen and her army came to King’s Landing, because Cersei was far from a beloved queen. She’d ruled with fear, imprisoned or executed anyone who questioned her, and found herself rather scarce on allies by the end. The Queensguard had remained blindly loyal enough to defend her, though, so the dragons had also feasted well upon the cowards who in Robb’s opinion had forfeited their right to breathe the moment they’d raised their hands against Sansa in the throne room.

Tyrion, who must not have quite gotten his fill of being close to power after all, had found his way into Daenerys’ good graces during his travels and proved instrumental in her conquest-from-within of King’s Landing. At first he’d tried to negotiate with Cersei, but she’d gotten it in her head that he had murdered Joffrey since he clearly wasn’t above killing family, and had immediately had him seized to await trial. He’d been in the black cells during the short battle that commenced upon his failure to return. Once the crown sat atop a Targaryen’s silver head again, Tyrion was named Hand of the Queen and promptly made his father roll in his grave by throwing himself a very lavish, very public wedding to Shae Lannister.

 

Cersei had utterly refused to listen to the Night Watch’s warnings of the coming threat, but at Tyrion’s urging, Queen Daenerys rode a dragon over the Wall to confirm the stories for herself. She was escorted by Jon (who seemed to have a natural knack for dragonriding himself) and returned with a promise that the crown would throw its full force toward the war.

Robb did have to kneel one more time, in a scene dramatic enough that the bards were already workshopping lyrics about dragons and direwolves. When the silver-haired Targaryen dismounted her dragon outside Winterfell’s gates, Robb bent the knee and said, “Your Grace, the North is yours.”

The queen held out her hand and replied, “And it is safe in your keeping, I trust. Rise, my lord.”

When Robb stood, gently took the offered hand, and bowed his head as Sansa’s etiquette lessons demanded, he thought that this ruler, too, was one he could serve.

At Daenerys’ command, her Hand immediately spearheaded the task of weapons manufacturing, so that anyone with the will to live and the hands to carry one would have access to a weapon edged in Valyrian steel or dragonglass, which Jon said were the only materials that could kill the damn creatures. Royal commands were issued to the Wardens of the West, East, and South to prepare their armies too.

So it wasn’t just the North, but all the kingdoms, that were flurrying with activity, their various other petty squabbles forgotten, as the White Walkers approached the Wall.

 

When Bran came back to Winterfell a few months before Jon’s deadline, accompanied by Howland Reed’s children Jojen and Meera, it was like Robb, Sansa, and Catelyn were seeing a ghost. The sky was clear the day he arrived, so this time Robb didn’t have the rain to mask his emotions as he welcomed home the brother he’d thought long dead. For Bran’s part, he was rather nonplussed by his mother’s and siblings’ fussing-over during the reunion. He seemed older, and not in the usual sense of a boy growing up, but in some ancient, wise, primal sense that gave Robb the distinct feeling that he was only partially his little brother and partially a new creature entirely.

Bran told his family, in his new vague, detached way, with translation help from the Reeds, that the burned bodies at Winterfell had been a farmer’s boys, meant to look like him and Rickon to cover up that Theon had lost them, make everyone fear the new Ironborn Lord of Winterfell, and show them all he was serious and not to be underestimated or defied. But the Stark brothers themselves had escaped with Hodor and Osha, the wildling woman whose life Robb had spared before the war.

The Reeds and Hodor had taken Bran beyond the Wall, and they had a whole story about looking for a three-eyed raven and the Children of the Forest, and at the end they said that now Bran was the three-eyed raven. Robb tried to follow the tale as best he could, but as far as he could tell, his brother still only had the two eyes, and no feathers, so he had to just nod and take their word for it.

When he was asked where Rickon was, Bran only said, “He is where he is.” They asked him about Hodor, and he said, “He’s somewhere else.” (Meera shook her head sadly, and they understood.) Robb half-thought that maybe Bran was actually a ghost, and his little brother spent a lot of time sitting rigid and still with his eyes rolled back so far in his head that the whites were showing, but they were all so thrilled by his return that it didn’t really matter how strange he was.

 

Finding Rickon was more like finding a wild animal in the woods. Free Folk had been pouring through the Wall to escape the army of the dead, and the northerners were working with King-Beyond-The-Wall Mance Rayder to adequately arm them and supply them with temporary encampments. On one such patrol, Jon immediately recognized the mop of curly red hair belonging to one of the wildling boys in a group they’d found hiding out in the wolfswood between Winterfell and the Wall.

Rickon ran when he approached, but when Jon caught him and looked into Catelyn Tully’s bright blue eyes, the boy looked back into Ned Stark’s grey ones and calmed. Then Shaggydog leapt from the woods, knocked Jon down, and slobbered all over his face. Jon accused Ghost of traitorous behavior when the white wolf didn’t even try to assist him.

Osha was still with him too, and explained that they’d actually been on their way to Winterfell already. She’d have brought him back sooner, except they’d been living with some of her people on the wild mountainous island of Skagos, and news didn’t exactly make its way over there quickly. The rough and treacherous currents in the Bay of Seals made it difficult to sail to or away from the isle, so she hadn’t even heard that the war had ended until she’d deemed enough time had passed that it might be safe to venture back to the mainland.

Plus, Rickon had heard that there were unicorns on Skagos and refused to even consider leaving until they’d found one. (According to both Osha and Rickon, whose grasp of Common was tenuous at best by now since Skagosi spoke in Old Tongue, they actually had found their unicorn in the end.)

 

In the cases of both Bran and Rickon, Nymeria always materialized at some point to escort them and their companions home, waited outside the gates long enough to ensure that each Stark she had brought there was still there and to accept a bit of feeding and fawning over from them all, and then left again.

The next time she came, Arya was with her, and to no one’s surprise, she had her own stories to tell. She’d traveled for a while with King Robert’s bastard Gendry, then the Hound, then by herself. She’d gone all the way to Braavos and back, learned some things about gods and faces, and more. She was the least surprised to hear about Robb’s experience with Tywin, because apparently she’d also been an undercover cupbearer for him at Harrenhal for a while. “He wasn’t as bad as I thought,” was her review. “He was smart. And kind of funny. I could have killed him, but I didn’t.” Robb thought that about summed it up for him too.

Just like that, the last Stark sibling had returned to Winterfell. That night, while they feasted in the Great Hall, Robb looked around at all of them, feeling his heart swell with pride and gratitude, wondering if he was dreaming. But he wasn’t waking up, and wouldn’t have wanted to.

 

Queen Daenerys and the realm’s best military strategists all united at Winterfell a month before the battle to make their final plans and preparations, while Tyrion stayed back to manage the city. Lord Commander Snow came down as well, with some of his officers, to give final reports on the progress of the risen army and provide recommendations on the best way to engage. They settled on letting the fight come to them, allowing the dead to climb the Wall or breach it so they could face their foes at strategic chokepoints.

After the war council had disbanded for the day, Jon pulled Robb and the other Starks aside for an even more interesting meeting. There wasn’t an un-dropped jaw in the room when he revealed the information his friend Samwell Tarly had unearthed: that he wasn’t their brother, but their cousin, and he wasn’t a bastard, but the trueborn son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, who had run off together and secretly wed before their deaths.

“Doesn’t that mean you have a claim to the Iron Throne too?” Robb asked, after recovering from his shock and making sure Dany wasn’t outside the room.

“Me, a southern king? Not bloody likely. I’d melt down there,” Jon said. “The queen’s got dragons and she earned it killing Cersei. Let her keep the damn sword chair.” So after a lot of discussion, they decided Robb would draw up the papers to have him legitimized as Jon Stark instead of Targaryen, and the secret would stay in the room where it had been told.

After they’d settled that issue, Jon asked Robb if he’d like a second run at being king in the North, after all this. Robb had to admit that the idea of a crown had sort of lost its luster, and as long as the queen kept the realm’s peace, he wouldn’t be the one to break it. Then he echoed his brother and added, “And she does have the bloody dragons.”

Cat had gone pale and silent when Jon told the family about his true parentage and slipped out before the end of the conversation. No one saw her for hours, until Robb went looking and found her at the humble sept Ned had built her at Winterfell, so she could stay in communion with her southern gods. When she looked up as Robb entered, her tear-streaked face crumpled again. “Ned didn’t tell me,” she whispered, staring around at the statues of the Seven that surrounded them. “Jon won’t forgive me. And he shouldn’t.”

“Maybe not,” Robb said, and sat with her. “But you don’t get to decide that for him.”

“I did decide it for him,” she said, voice crackling with anguish. “Because I didn’t forgive him, and he was only a baby. And then a child. An orphan. And the whole time I made him feel like…” She pressed a hand to her mouth.

Robb looked at her, sad and hopeful in equal measure. “I’ve learned a thing or two these past few years about making mistakes,” he said slowly. “Seems to me the best thing’s to face them as straight as you can, then let them drive you forward instead of dragging you back.”

Cat clasped her eldest’s hand and asked when he’d gotten so wise, and he stayed for a while longer, just letting the silence wrap around them as colors moved and shadows changed through the stained-glass panel in one of the walls.

After he left, Robb didn’t see his mother again until close to sunset, when she emerged from the sept and asked Jon to walk in the godswood. So they could talk in the place where his gods lived, not hers. Robb never asked them what they said, but when they came back out, Cat wasn’t the only one wiping her eyes.

And it didn’t matter if the half-brother actually wasn’t a brother even by half, because after that they were more a family than they’d ever been.

 

---

 

When winter broke through the Wall, the united forces of the Seven Kingdoms were there to meet it.

Before the battle, as he was riding between the armies, Robb recognized one of the cavalry knights who had come with the Queen’s forces. Ser Jeryd Serrett looked haughtier than ever in his impeccably shiny armor, and when their horses pulled up next to each other, his eyes flicked up and down Robb as if he were no more impressed with him than the first day he’d met him.

“What are you doing here?” Robb asked, grimacing.

“Well, I told you not to bring an army south,” Jeryd said, dripping with condescension. “You forgot to warn me not to bring one north, so I figured I’d come up and see what all the fuss was about. You fought a war for this? Bit of a dismal place if you ask me.”

“Good thing I didn’t ask you,” Robb shot back, then looked him up and down too. “By my math, you’re twenty, and judging by the armor, you’re a knight. Made your first deadline, I take it?”

“Took the oaths before my nineteenth name-day, actually,” Jeryd sniffed. “I squired for Lord Tywin’s brother for less than a year after you left and he became the new Hand. Ser Kevan is here too, but he’s riding with Lord Jaime’s army. He said it would be a waste to keep me a squire much longer, and then I won a tournament and got a sword on my shoulders at the end, so here I am.”

“I’m a bit short on time for nonsense at the moment, but stop by Winterfell for a drink on your way back south, so you can look down your nose at a northern castle,” Robb offered. “If you live.”

“Might do that,” Jeryd said. “If you live.”

“First one to die loses,” Robb said, and continued his rounds.

 

Jaime Lannister had apparently come home a changed man, in more ways than his missing hand. He’d been officially dismissed from the Kingsguard (now the Queensguard), because Daenerys apparently took a slightly un-casual view of keeping whitecloaks around who had stabbed Targaryens. Even if she could admit it had been justified, when Jaime had finally told the rest of his story—which he’d only done after a great deal of threatening from Brienne of Tarth, who had first been his captor and then his travel companion while he’d been gone. When he’d been summoned in front of the dragon queen, Lady Brienne had accompanied him and demanded in front of the crowd that he tell the truth and restore his honor or she’d do it herself. So Jaime had.

Just before his death, King Aerys had ordered his head pyromancer to burn King’s Landing with wildfire—the same pyromancer who had burned Robb’s grandfather, in fact—so that when Robert’s forces took the city, he'd be ruling over nothing but the ashes of the dead. There wasn’t a single oath Jaime could think of that would have made him just stand by and watch any longer. He’d killed the pyromancer first, then stabbed the king when he tried to flee in search of someone else willing to do his bidding. Two days later, he had hunted down two other pyromancers involved in the plot, to make sure the city was safe.

He had never told a single soul about it until Brienne. Jaime Lannister had carried that secret with him all those years, while people spat Kingslayer at him and never knew he’d saved them.

“The people of our beautiful city surely thank you for your service to its protection,” Daenerys had told him, according to those who had witnessed Jaime’s recounting of the tale in the throne room. “I am not my father, and you are not on trial for the past. The future is what matters now, and yours will begin once you kneel.”

So Jaime had bent the knee without a fuss and taken his place as the Lord of Casterly Rock, since he had no one left to spite by refusing the position anymore. He’d knighted Brienne and appointed her the master-at-arms at the fortress, and the two of them, who both refused to admit they were anything other than good friends, had led the Lannister army north to join the efforts against the frozen corpses that, at this very second, were starting their assault on the Wall. When Robb rode past the Lannister troop formations, he and Jaime didn’t have time to do anything except make eye contact before the horns started blowing.

 

Lord Stark was back under the direwolf banners, between Astrid and Arya, when the horde broke through the Wall and descended upon them. Bran was at the rear of the Stark forces, surrounded by their best guards, his eyes going white as he warged into ravens and used what he saw to send messages to the tacticians. Sansa had lobbied to come and defend her homeland too, but she was still relatively new with a sword, so she, Cat, and Rickon were the Starks in Winterfell today.

To everyone’s surprise except the Starks who knew why, Jon had already mastered dragonriding, and could ride his father’s namesake Rhaegal as easily as if he were astride a horse. He and Queen Dany were in the skies.

The battle raged throughout the day, as the living fought the dead and the dead died second deaths. Hours flew by for Robb in a blur of whirling, slicing, killing. Shouting orders, motivating his soldiers, swiftly strategizing their next battle moves.

Before it had begun, he’d wondered how it would feel, being in a war again. He’d wondered if he’d still be confident leading a real fight. Or if maybe it would reopen old wounds. If he trusted himself. If he’d fail again.

He hadn’t really expected to enjoy it.

But as he carved through wight after wight, he could feel an old fire burning in him again. And it wasn’t consuming him. He was just using it. He was protecting his family, and his people, and his kingdom, and his realm.

Robb had been fucking born for this.

He let himself grin as he swung his father’s greatsword. Ice sent a White Walker’s head tumbling to the ground.

Since all the best warriors of the Seven Kingdoms were on the front lines, not many of the living joined the ranks of the wights as the hours passed. Robb had implemented a system of regular troop rotation to prevent any fighter from growing overly fatigued with too long a stint taking the brunt of the assault, so even the injuries were minimal on the human side so far. As he looked around at his fellow fighters, Lord Stark felt a warm glow of satisfaction at the incredible things people could accomplish when they banded together for a greater cause.

Shortly before nightfall, the war against the dead came to an abrupt end. One of Bran’s ravens finally spotted the Night King commanding the battle from a frozen hilltop beyond the Wall, and Jon and Dany, flying on Rhaegal and Drogon, followed the swarm of black birds Bran sent to lead them to him.

When they found the Night King, the wights guarding him were swiftly consumed in a blaze of dragon’s breath, and then Jon landed to face the leader of ice in a ring of fire. Robb wished he could have been there to see the fight, but all he saw was the moment the rest of the Night King’s army disintegrated, while the living warriors paused mid-swing in confusion as their enemies suddenly fell around them.

After the fact, when they’d returned to the army, Jon told Robb it had been quite an easy match and he probably could have killed ten more Night Kings without breaking a sweat. Queen Daenerys, the sole witness, looked deeply skeptical when he said it, so Jon shrugged and added, “Don’t know what that look was for. I only almost died ten or twenty times. Like I said. Easy.”

The Lord of Winterfell gave his brother a whack upside the head and laughed, which made the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch try (and fail) to put him in a headlock. But he was laughing too, and the tussle didn’t last long before it turned into a tight, grateful embrace. Because Robb’s brother was alive, and the Night King was dead, and the realm was safe.

Jon was the dragon and the wolf, and he came from the blood of warriors and kings, and he had been fucking born for that.

 

A few hours after the battle’s end, Lord Jaime Lannister showed up at the Starks’ army camp, walked straight up to Robb, nodded toward Bran, and asked, “Did he remember yet, that I’m the one who pushed him out of the window at Winterfell? If not, I figured you both should hear it from me. Don’t know that I’d accept my own apology if I were him, but the least I can do is offer one.”

While Robb looked back and forth between them, trying to figure out whether to arrest Jaime, Bran rolled his eyes back out of the whites and said, “He did what he was supposed to do.” So Robb supposed if Bran wasn’t demanding justice, he couldn’t really prosecute the crime, and Jaime seemed genuinely remorseful even if it had all been “part of the raven’s plan,” which was another thing Bran said.

Over a drink around the fire, Robb told Jaime about how his father had not only spared his life, but helped make him a better man in the year after his capture. Jaime absorbed the information silently, then held up his carved-gold right hand, raised his eyebrows at Bran, glanced up at a dragon soaring overhead in the moonlight, gestured to a White Walker’s skull he was keeping as a war trophy, and said he supposed stranger things had happened.

Then he told Robb his own story. Under Cat’s orders, Brienne had been taking him back to King’s Landing to trade for the Stark girls—Robb obviously knew that part. They’d been traveling on foot, so it had been slow going, and the roads were full of enemies and hazards even after the war ended. First, they’d been captured by a group of criminal sellswords, who had been the ones to chop off Jaime’s sword hand after he killed some of them during an escape attempt. Then they’d been found and freed by Lannister men—or at least, Jaime had been freed, while Brienne had been taken to Harrenhal, where he’d come on the scene just in time to narrowly rescue her from a fight to the death with a bear.

After that, he was no longer Brienne’s captive and would have been perfectly free to return to King’s Landing and his family, who now at least knew he was alive. Brienne, meanwhile, had heard the news that Arya was missing, and decided that since she hadn’t been able to fulfill her bargain to ransom the girls, she’d go searching for the missing one instead. Jaime had figured, in his own words, that he had “nothing better to do,” so he’d accompanied her and continued dodging his father’s search parties while they traveled. They’d met the Brotherhood Without Banners and gotten some information from them and Gendry, who said Arya had continued north after they split up, so that had been their next lead.

Then they had actually found her, in the company of the Hound, who was trying to take her to the Vale to ransom her to her aunt. Brienne had crossed swords with the Hound and wounded him, but the girl had escaped in the commotion. Well, actually, Jaime had noticed and tried to stop her, but she’d told him that she had an appointment with a faceless man and would be found when she bloody well wanted to be, which was something Jaime could relate to, so he’d shrugged and let her slip away. It also worked nicely for him, because as long as she was still missing, it meant he and Brienne had to keep searching.

And although they’d eventually given up, and Arya had indeed been the one to find herself in the end, that was all right, because it had been a rather excellent time. They’d even done, in his words, a fair number of “assorted honorable knightly tasks for the smallfolk” along the way. And it wasn’t that he was happy to hear the news of his father’s death and then his sister’s, but the two of them had sort of spent their lives yanking Jaime around like a puppet on their strings, so was it really so tragic for the strings to be cut? For the first time in his life, he felt like he was his own person, making his own decisions, he reflected as he finished his story, aiming a thoughtful gaze up to the sky.

But Robb didn’t miss the anguish that crept into Jaime’s expression when he added, “My biggest regret about the way things played out is that I should have been there for my…”

The silence settled over them after Jaime trailed off and Robb let him decide if or how to finish the sentence, wondering whether he would say my nephew or Tommen.

Instead, Jaime ran a hand down his face, glanced at Robb despairingly, and said, “My son.”

Robb nodded slowly. “He was a good king,” he told Jaime. “He would have been a good man.”

“Better than me,” Jaime said, and returned his gaze to the stars. “I actually went back to King’s Landing and saw them both, a month or so after my father’s funeral. Cersei had changed, or maybe it was me who had. We fought, and I left again. I didn’t think…” He paused, grappling for the words. “I thought she’d protect him. But I should have protected him.” The silence stretched longer this time, and Jaime didn’t look at Robb again, saying the last quiet sentence as much to himself as anyone. “I’ll carry that with me to my death.”

The fire crackled. Robb stared into it and gave Jaime his moment. When the man roused himself to reach for another ale, Robb inquired, “Have you seen Myrcella since it all happened? I know Prince Trystane came up with the Dornish army.”

“I spent a bit of time with them in Dorne, in fact, after the news about Tommen,” Jaime said. “She’s happy. We stayed long enough to make sure no one would be coming to put a crown on her head against her will. Then Brienne dragged me back off on the mission. Or, well—I guess technically she decided to leave, and said come or don’t, I don’t care. Same thing, essentially.”

“Now there’s a question,” Robb said. “Why did you save Lady Brienne and start traveling with her in the first place? Wasn’t she your captor?”

“I suppose you didn’t get an opportunity to see her fight today,” Jaime said, sounding almost worshipful. “We were competing for more kills the whole time, even though I obviously didn’t stand a chance. She could beat the shit out of me even when I had both hands. She’s magnificent.” Then, almost as if he’d caught himself confessing something he hadn’t meant to, he quickly added, “…As a friend.”

“Well,” Robb said. “I suppose friendship is important.” And he held his laughter back as long as he could, which only made his ale spray out of his nose when he was finally forced to give in. At first, Jaime glared at him, but then he started laughing too, and they raised a toast to women who could kick their arses.

By the time Jaime departed back to his own camp, so late in the night that it was closer to dawn, Robb wasn’t sure he could say that Starks and Lannisters were truly so different anymore.

Chapter 32: The Pack Survives

Notes:

It's surreal to be posting the last chapter of this fic. Thank you all so, so much for being here, getting invested in these characters and storylines with me, and taking the time to share your thoughts in the comments (every one of them is appreciated—past, present, and future!). This is the longest work of fiction I’ve ever written and I’ve loved every minute of sharing it with you.

With the Night King defeated for good, the Starks reunited at Winterfell and spent some time soaking in the peace and just enjoying being them for the first time in a long time.

When Jeryd split off from the queen’s army for his promised detour to Winterfell, he described the castle as “quaint and provincial,” which was much kinder than Robb had expected. The first night of his stay, the two of them shared a bottle of winterwine atop a frosty parapet. Jeryd admitted that the drink tasted much better in the North, because it did make you feel warm inside, and that was a more pleasant and more necessary feature here than in King’s Landing, where you were warm all the time by default.

Once they were halfway through the bottle, Robb gazed out at the moonlit snow-covered landscape stretching out eighty feet below them. “It strikes me that I don’t know that much about you,” he commented after they’d been quiet for a moment.

Jeryd took a drink and handed him the wine. “What’s there to know?”

“I don’t know what there is to know, that’s the point,” Robb said. “You’ve met my family now and somehow tricked them into liking you, so how about yours? Do you have siblings? What was your childhood like?”

“Well, I’m my family’s fourth son,” Jeryd answered. “Not the heir, or the spare, or even the spare’s spare. So growing up, nobody had any expectations for me other than the ones I had for myself. Those unfortunately happened to be rather high, without much of the raw talent I needed to meet them.”

“Did you always want to be a knight? How did you end up becoming Lord Lannister’s squire?”

“I’ve wanted to as long as I can remember,” Jeryd told him. “My oldest brother let me be his page when I turned eight, mostly to shut me up. Then when I was twelve, I started competing in prospective squire’s tourneys, trying to find a decent knight to take me on.”

He paused, reflecting, and Robb sipped the winterwine.

“I wasn’t much to look at, to be honest,” Jeryd confessed when he went on. “Just some scrawny kid losing most of his fights. And I got some offers anyway, throughout the year, but I wasn’t going to accept one from just any knight. Especially not the ones who weren’t anything to speak of themselves and would only be settling for me because any unpaid pair of hands to sharpen their sword would do. Although maybe the decent ones were worse, because they just looked at me like they pitied me when they asked.” He glanced at Robb. “At the tourney he visited, Lord Tywin didn’t look at me like that.”

“Not too big on pity,” Robb agreed. “Tell me about that tourney, then.”

“I remember the day very well,” Jeryd said. “He wasn’t even there looking for a new squire; it was only because Dantis was going to be competing in one of the real tournaments later in the day. In the morning, Lord Tywin happened to be watching on the sidelines long enough to see me get totally wrecked in at least five matches. But after I finally scratched out a win, he overheard me turning a knight down, and I think that was the part that got him interested.”

Robb listened intently, only interrupting silently to hand back the bottle.

“After the knight left, Lord Lannister looked over and asked whether I’d rejected the offer because I had too much ambition or too little sense, since he didn’t see a line stretching across the field for me.” Jeryd took a swig of the wine. “I was taken aback that he was even speaking to me, and as politely as I could, I said that I meant no offense to the man, but if I wanted to squire for some mediocre hedge knight I’d never heard of, I could have been doing that months ago. Given the condition I was in and my defeat ratio for the day, I probably looked ridiculous saying that, but he didn’t act like I’d said anything stupid at all.”

“I can’t believe you never told me this story,” Robb said. “What happened next?”

“There was a match going on with two other boys in the field, so he went back to watching that one, and it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything else to me. I was about to leave when he asked if, by chance, I’d heard of him. Of course I had. Who hadn’t? And then he mentioned that usually he took squires as some sort of favor to their house, or a trade arrangement with their fathers, things like that. It was rare for one to come into his employ strictly of their own volition, and he had certainly never asked a boy directly. I wasn’t really letting myself believe what I thought he was getting at yet.”

“Did he ask you directly?”

“I’m not sure if asking is really the word for it. Lord Tywin looked me right in the eyes and said that if I squired for him, it wasn’t going to be a favor to anyone, including me, and that I probably wouldn’t have a very good time.”

“And you said…”

“That I wanted to be a good knight more than I wanted to have a good time.”

It was funny how well Robb could picture this whole conversation. “That sold it, huh?”

Jeryd nodded. “He said he would write to my father, then told me to collect my things and be at the gates at dawn the next day, because they wouldn’t be waiting if I was late. I stayed up all night so I wouldn’t risk oversleeping, and a few weeks later I was turning thirteen at Casterly Rock.”

“Was the prediction right?” Robb asked. “Did you have a good time or not?”

Jeryd tilted his head up to see the stars. “I still can’t decide if that first year was the worst one of my life or the best.”

Robb laughed. “It’s strange how a good year and a bad year can be the same year.”

The young knight returned a snort. “I’m glad you understand.”

“No wonder you were always such a pompous little knob,” Robb said, passing him back the wine again. “The only squire Lord Tywin ever chose himself.”

Raising an eyebrow, Jeryd questioned, “Not you?”

Robb gestured at himself. “Do I look like a knight? I was never a squire. It was just the word that made sense for what he wanted to do.”

Jeryd gave him another judgmental once-over. “Well, he didn’t do a very good job with whatever that was.”

“First of all, fuck yourself,” Robb advised him. “Secondly, I’m legally obligated to state for the record that you still aren’t much to look at.”

A slow smile spread over Jeryd’s face. “Well, I’ve just been asked to join the Queensguard. So maybe she likes to look at me.”

With a snort, Robb said, “No matter how ambitious you are, I recommend that you keep your hands off the queen.”

“Maybe I’ve been doing this living thing all wrong,” Jeryd mused. “Maybe too much ambition isn’t as fun as too little sense.”

“Gods, you’re going to be insufferable in that shiny white armor,” Robb sighed. “That alone is going to be enough to keep me away from the south.”

Jeryd smirked. “That’s really the main reason I’m accepting the job.” He tipped over the bottle, gave it a shake, and watched the last drop of winterwine stain the snow.

As a gust of night wind howled over the parapets, they lapsed into silence for a moment. Then Robb asked, “If you’d been in Cersei’s Queensguard, would you have fought for her?”

Cutting his eyes over, Jeryd said, “I seem to remember some advice I got about recognizing bad rulers.”

“So that’s a no?”

Returning his gaze to the inky black sky, Jeryd said, “When I was knighted, I swore my sword to King Tommen and the defense of the city. That was only a month before Cersei…and then he…” His jaw clenched. “Anyway. The dragons came right on time, actually. The leaders of the rebellion couldn’t agree on who they’d install after the coup.”

“You joined a rebellion?” Robb asked, disbelievingly.

“It’s just like I always used to say,” Jeryd told him. “Rules were made to be broken.”

“Here at Winterfell, we throw liars off the wall,” Robb warned him.

Not missing a beat, Jeryd replied, “Not if the liars throw you off the wall first.”

They agreed that just for tonight, it might be best to descend the wall via the stairs instead of either of them taking the fast way. Before they got up to head inside and find a second bottle, Robb had the thought to ask where Garrick had ended up.

“Do you know who Bronn is?” Jeryd asked, then corrected himself. “Ser Bronn?”

“Tyrion’s sellsword who got knighted, right? Never met him.”

“That’s the man,” Jeryd said. “When the word went out for our reassignment, I think he thought it would be funny to have a squire, and I didn’t get the sense Garrick was looking for a very difficult taskmaster this time around, so that’s who he’s with now. They stayed in the south to protect King’s Landing or something. Guarantee they’ll be getting drunker tonight than we will.”

“I have to ask,” Robb said. “How’s his hair?”

Jeryd was laughing easier these days. “You knew about that little war?”

“I knew about a couple skirmishes.”

“Last time I saw him, it was past his shoulders.”

Robb hopped to his feet. “Good for him.”

They went in to thaw out by the hearth. Winterfell hosted its guest for another week, and sunset usually found Lord Robb and Ser Jeryd sparring in the training yard.

 

---

 

Robb Stark’s place was Winterfell again, and he was glad to be home. As for the other Starks, they knew that home and family would always be there for them when they needed, but they had their own destinies taking them their own directions.

Bran flew to King’s Landing atop a dragon, on a giant special saddle it took a month to make, and became a key member of Queen Daenerys’ advisory council, since he apparently knew all that had been, and all that would be, or something like that; it still didn’t make a lot of sense to Robb. All he knew was that the queen ruled and earned the love of her people, Bran sat in the gardens spending most of his time warging into birds until someone came to him to receive cryptic advice that it usually took multiple maesters to decode, and the Hand worked out the logistics of implementing his plans. Tyrion had the worst job of the three, Robb thought, and he’d probably either had to cut back on his whiskey consumption, or increase it, to manage it all.

After the battle, Jaime and Brienne had tramped back down south to Casterly Rock and quietly wed. They had both worn their armor for the ceremony, and last Robb had heard there actually was a Lannister heir on the way. Boy or girl, with parents like that, he expected the infant would be born with a sword in its hand. Maybe Tywin would roll a little less furiously in his grave about that.

Sansa actually had missed the North in some ways, but two years back in the cold was enough for her, and she didn’t hesitate to accept when a raven arrived from Lady Olenna asking her to pay a visit to Highgarden. Purely because she missed her delightful company, it said. “It’s a ruse to get me to meet her grandson Willas,” Sansa told them before her travel party departed. “He’s the heir to House Tyrell and she kept dropping little mentions of him to me in King’s Landing. He sounds lovely, and I’m going to play innocent so I don’t ruin all her schemes to set us up, which I’m certain will be elaborate. But I’m not packing with a mind to return, and I hope you can all come to the wedding.”

They all did go, not even three months later, and Highgarden proved to be just as lovely as the new Lady Tyrell looked at the event. By now it was an open secret that Lady Olenna had masterminded King Joffrey’s death, but there wasn’t a single soul left in the realm who cared enough to demand justice. Robb sidled up to the old woman as Willas and Sansa shared a dance, which Olenna was watching with an expression that seemed simultaneously fond and smug. They made a bit of small talk before he casually asked what she thought about Queen Daenerys’ establishment of new agricultural trade relations with her connections in Essos and her accompanying crackdown on piracy—or burndown, rather, since that’s what her dragons were doing to pirate ships.

Olenna gently smiled at him, said it was simply wonderful to know the seas would be that much safer—and offered to beat any prices the Essosi traders offered, if the North would agree to put an embargo on foreign imports of goods they could acquire domestically. Since their houses were united now, they’d sealed the deal with a toast.

Tyrion had also been invited to his sort-of-former-wife’s wedding. Robb didn’t notice him sneaking up until he was having a new drink shoved into his hands. “Have you already found the best liquor in Highgarden?” he asked the dwarf, who held a matching goblet of his own.

“Nothing else would do,” Tyrion said. “We haven’t had the chance, yet, to toast to not being relatives anymore.”

Robb raised his glass. “Meaning no offense, but I will gladly drink to that.”

They drank, and Tyrion said, “Can’t lie, it does feel at least a little good that it’s your turn to be jealous.”

“What do you mean?” Robb asked, frowning slightly.

Tyrion gestured to the Hand pin he wore on his tunic.

“I’m going to need a bit more than that,” Robb told him.

“The bastard,” Tyrion muttered. “I just assumed he would have said it to you too.”

“He?” Robb asked. “Your father?”

“Not too long before the situation between us became, ah…untenable…I told him I’d be glad to resume the duties of Hand, whenever he was ready to retire, or fate retired him,” the dwarf explained, and drank, and grimaced a little. “First he said that he’d disgraced the pin enough by putting it on me once, and I should consider myself fortunate enough to get Casterly Rock if I ever managed to produce some heirs to raise there. Then he said that fate could do what it liked, but that when he was ready to retire, in a decade or two, he might recommend for Tommen to offer the position to you, if you were older and wiser and hadn’t run the North into the ground by then.”

“Huh.” Robb contemplated the information. “News to me. He was still telling me he might kill me at that point. I don’t think Lord Tywin really made a habit of saying nice things to the people he was being nice to.”

“Or anyone else,” Tyrion agreed. “Anyway, when I asked why you of all people, he was rather vague, but mentioned you’d been borrowing books and seemed to have a pretty good head on your shoulders when you were given the opportunity to use it. Right to my face, as if I’d never read a book before and didn’t enjoy opportunities to use my head.”

Robb ran a hand through his hair. “Gods. I honestly don’t blame you for shooting him.”

But suddenly, he was thinking about the books again, and it felt like the last bits of the mystery were slotting into place. He’d been taught southern politics, so he would understand the histories and relationships of all the individual kingdoms. Economics, so he could manage domestic and intercontinental trade. Math, so he’d be equipped to oversee the finances of the realm. International culture, so he could understand foreign events and anticipate potential threats. War strategy, to further sharpen his skills for the protection of the realm. Negotiation and diplomacy, so war might not be necessary—as Tywin had modeled in his own handling of Joffrey’s assassination and the Ironborn uprising.

The way he’d been testing Robb’s talents hadn’t just been about the North after all, then, at least not by the end. Tywin had understood that he wasn’t going to live forever, and he’d wanted Tommen surrounded by capable people after he was gone. Not sure if His Grace is particularly cut out for the business end of things, he’d told Robb once. So if Robb had turned out to be the effective leader Tywin had thought he could be, and hadn’t been overly isolationist in his management of the North, and had managed to continue getting smarter in all the right ways… The King’s Hand had been contemplating his fucking succession plan.

“Well, I shot him because he threw my lovely wife in the dungeon and would have probably had her hanged,” Tyrion reminded him. “Don’t know if I’d have ever had the stones to do it just for myself, although the trigger did pull a little easier with a lifetime of animosity behind it. I don’t think he ever saw me as anything other than the deformed little monster who killed his wife, as if I had a say in it.”

“I hope Lady Shae is doing well,” Robb said. “And Lord Tywin probably shouldn’t have treated his children like dirt if he didn’t want one of them to put him in it.”

“In hindsight, I probably could have devised a better solution than something as pedestrian as murder,” Tyrion reflected. “But for once, I really wasn’t thinking with my head.”

Robb nodded. “Trust me, I know what that’s like. I was tempted to kill him myself more than once that year.”

“Damn you,” Tyrion cursed him. “Could have saved me the hassle.”

“Anyway,” Robb said, taking another sip, “if reality hadn’t interfered with his plans, I probably would have turned it down. I might be less hopeless at politics these days, but I like the North, and Warden’s about as much power as I can stomach.”

Tyrion sighed. “One Stark in King’s Landing is enough anyway. I’ve been begging Bran—or the Raven, as he makes us call him—to stop speaking in riddles for months, and he’s only making them more complicated. You’d think a cripple would have more sympathy for a dwarf.”

Robb glanced across the room at Bran, who had shared a dragon with Tyrion for the flight to Highgarden and was currently parked in a chair in the corner, and when Bran’s head swiveled to look back at him, he could have sworn that his brother looked mischievous.

“Think of it as an opportunity to use your head,” he advised Tyrion.

The dwarf gave him a longsuffering look, peered into his glass, found it empty, plucked Robb’s half-full one out of his hand, and chugged it.

“That’s the second time you’ve brought me a drink and ended up drinking most of it yourself,” Robb pointed out.

“Hold that thought,” Tyrion said. “I’m going to go get ‘you’ another drink.”

 

After the wedding, the remaining Starks traveled home, but most of them didn’t stay long.

Newly a Stark and with no real need to keep leading the Night’s Watch at the moment, Jon assumed control of the lands of the Gift, just south of the Wall, and led resettlement efforts for the Free Folk who wanted to spend the coming years of winter in the new villages they were building there. He seemed to have his eye on a redheaded girl who had fought with the wildling army and insulted him all the time. “You’re right, Ygritte, he does know nothing,” Robb had agreed once, and it had been well worth the almighty shove he caught from his brother for it.

Rickon went back north with Jon too, more to participate in the resettlement than to help exactly, because even Winterfell was too civilized to please the youngest Stark now, and Osha’s group of wildlings considered him one of their own. At first Cat had wanted to take him back with her to Riverrun, but had relented when she saw the pure joy on his face as he played with his horde of adopted siblings. She’d extended an open invitation for Rickon and Osha to visit whenever they wanted, and, with a slight grimace, had agreed to host the other children too, as long as they all promised not to drown in the Trident while they were there.

Nobody really knew where Arya went until her ravens came, carrying a more ridiculous story every time. When she’d left, Nymeria had too, but the two had parted where the path split outside the gates. Robb had a feeling he’d spot them walking back up it together sooner or later, on some day he least expected it.

With all five of her children’s lives and futures as settled or unsettled as they wanted them to be, Catelyn returned permanently to Riverrun after Sansa’s wedding, assumed its rule again, and quietly remarried Lord Jason Mallister of Seagard the same year. They split their time between their castles, sometimes separate and sometimes together, and since Mallister already had his heir and spare, he didn’t object when Cat kept her name and called her sixth child Edmund Tully. Robb visited Riverrun a few months later to meet his half-brother, and since he wasn’t there as a king leading a war this time, he spent the mornings of his stay diving off the bridge from Cat’s stories, and the nights back on it in the moonlight, with the infant in his lap, listening to her retell them.

Young Edmund was an uncle before his first name-day. Robb and Astrid Stark’s son arrived a year into the long winter that followed the Night King’s defeat. They named him Edvard and called him Ned, and his eyes were a darker grey than his mother’s, more like his namesake’s. Maybe, Robb thought, if Jaime Lannister’s heir and his ever had cause to draw swords together, they could be pointed in the same direction, like their fathers’ blades had been in the battle against the dead. Little Selwin Lannister had gotten his first name from Brienne’s father, Lord Tarth, but somehow Robb didn’t think that would disturb the peace of a dead man who cared more about the last name and had said himself that there might already be too many Tywin Lannisters in the world.

A few months after Robb’s son was born, Nymeria came back once more, this time on her own—if you didn’t count the litter of puppies trotting behind her. After spending months here with Arya, she’d grown used to having the run of the castle as it pleased her again, and sauntered right through the gates when Lord Stark ordered them opened for her. She seemed to be on a mission, so Robb followed the wolves into the keep and up to the nursery. He watched as Nymeria used her teeth to pick up the smallest pup by the scruff of its neck and deposited it in Edvard’s crib, where it snuggled right in. The infant didn’t even wake.

Then the proud mother lined up the other three, nipping at them when they tried to wander, and looked at Robb expectantly, like she was trying to let him choose his own. But he didn’t. He crouched on the floor and put out his hand, and almost instantly, a little grey ball of fur came to him. So it was settled: Ashwind had chosen him, and would grow to wolfhood in Winterfell and help him guard the North.

That night, the pup slept at the foot of their bed, and Robb had a dream. The details were fuzzy and unfocused, but he had a sense that he was very small and very curious. When he woke with a start, he looked around the room and spotted Ashwind on patrol, sniffing at anything he could find down on his level. The little wolf stopped suddenly and looked straight back at him with luminous golden eyes, and something in Robb’s heart felt a little wholer then.

He couldn’t think of a name for Edvard’s small black-and-silver wolf, until Astrid suggested Honor. Robb had to admit he liked the sound of Ned Stark growing up with Honor, and he hadn’t realized he’d married someone so poetic. Nymeria stayed until all the pups were done nursing, then bounded back off into the wilderness with the two she was keeping.

Once he’d found it in a drawer, sealed up the crack, made sure the thing was nice and clean and free of splinters, and applied a hardened clear layer of tree sap so it would stay that way, Robb gave little Ned the assassin’s wooden rabbit, and Winterfell’s new heir cut his teeth chewing on its ears.

Notes:

“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.”
- Eddard Stark, A Game of Thrones