Chapter Text
Robb won’t stop crying, and his screams echo around the small wheelhouse, unstoppable and inescapable. No matter how Catelyn rocks or bounces or pats him, he will not calm, his face red with distress and mouth wide in wailing. Seated opposite Catelyn in the carriage, Lysa puts her hands over her ears and glowers at sister and nephew both. “Cat, can’t you make him be quiet?” she demands, and she has to raise her voice to even be heard.
“I’m trying,” Catelyn answers dully, but to herself she wonders how she can possibly calm her child when she wants to weep right along with him. In a way, she almost envies him, that he can scream his anguish to the world, while she must sit quietly while her world falls about her ears. Perhaps he knows that the wheelhouse is lurching along the road to King’s Landing, leaving Riverrun behind, perhaps forever. Perhaps he knows that he is the son of a dead traitor to the crown, and his mother is widow and orphan both now, and only the mercy of the king would spare them the fate of those rebellious lords – Hoster Tully, Eddard Stark, Jon Arryn, and Robert Baratheon.
Lysa seems less concerned about the situation they find themselves in, settling for watching the world bounce past outside the small window. She had seemed almost relieved to hear of her husband’s death, though she had tried her best to hide it, and to Catelyn’s shock Lysa, always so delicate and emotional, had not shed a tear even for their father. She seems to regard their trip to King’s Landing with an odd sort of optimism, as though it were an adventure they were embarking upon, while all Catelyn feels is cold dread. Perhaps it is her sister’s naivety that makes her think that way, a trust that Jon Connington would be true to his word. The Hand of the King himself had come to Riverrun, and had lain a proposal they could not refuse – send Lady Stark and Lady Arryn, along with the Stark babe, to court to swear their loyalty to the king, and Riverrun would go unmolested. Their uncle, ever loyal and protective, had wanted to deny him regardless, but Catelyn had taken one look at Edmure and had agreed to go. Knowing that her brother would be safe in his home had been enough to persuade her that she must go.
And her son, the rightful heir of Winterfell, may now be fatherless but he is nephew to the new queen. Catelyn had never before met her good-sister Lyanna, the girl who disappeared and sparked a war, but surely she would not harm a babe of her own blood? Surely not, when she now has a child of her own, and she knows the tenderness of a mother’s love?
And if Robb is safe, Catelyn cannot bring herself to care very much what happens to her. She is only nine-and-ten, but she feels as though she has lived an eternity of sorrows. She would like to live, to protect and care for her son, and because she is not yet so jaded that she does not fear death, but her own fate is far from her heaviest worry.
One of the guards riding beside their wheelhouse orders them to draw the curtains as they approach the city, and while Lysa protests that she should like to see King’s Landing, Catelyn wonders instead why they are so intent on keeping them hidden away. They are quickly hustled into the keep, brought straight to the throne room without the opportunity to wash their faces or put on fresh gowns before being presented to the king, weary and travel-worn.
Catelyn’s father had brought her to court only once as a child. Though he had warned her sternly that the king’s moods were fickle and she must curtsy and not speak, his caution had not dampened her excitement. The court had been a wonder, a parade of ladies in beautiful colorful dresses and knights in gleaming armor, standing watch beneath the rippling, fearsome Targaryen banners as her father had firmly held her by the hand and led her to where the king sat perched upon the great Iron Throne. She remembers so little of the king itself, for he had been the least impressive of what she had seen, save the fact that he had seemed so oddly small in that large seat, his fingers curled and grasping for purchase on the arms. But she had remembered every moment of walking that distance from the great oaken doors to the base of the throne – the high vaulted ceilings, the swirls of colors, the draped banners, the snippets of chatter that came from every direction while Catelyn turned her head to and fro, endlessly interested in a world she knew so little of.
Today, however, the hall is full of whispers that echo off the walls as Catelyn and her sister walk towards the throne. Like the murmur of ghosts, Catelyn thinks, and she wonders if the Great Hall is haunted indeed. This is where Brandon died, she remembers. She raises her eyes along the walls, and the great dragon skulls stare emptily back at her as she tries to push the image of her betrothed walking these very steps with a rope around his neck.
She grieves for them both, the man who had been her betrothed and the brother who became her husband. She had known Brandon for years, had imagined her life with him, and it had seemed so impossible that a man so bursting with life could be snuffed out so easily, the victim of his own bravado as much as anything. Eddard (Ned, he had told her on their wedding night, my family all calls me Ned, but it had not yet felt right on her lips) had been a stranger to her still, but he had given her the greatest of gifts – their son. He had never had the opportunity to set eyes on his son, though even in his reserved letter Catelyn knows he had been pleased at his birth. He had asked her to name him Robb for the man they had thought would be their king. Robb would never know his father, and it is all so terribly unfair.
Seated upon the throne on the raised dais is King Rhaegar. He does not appear as his father did, all those years ago, as though he is fighting to remain seated, to keep from being swallowed up by the tangled mass of swords. He sits straight and regal, as a king should, as Catelyn imagines a king would. He had been handsome as a prince but he is ethereal as a king, otherworldly in his beauty and serenely projecting an aura of power.
Catelyn hates him.
She curtsies low, though, balancing precariously with Robb on her hip, far less graceful than Lysa beside her. Through lowered lashes she looks up, scanning either side of the throne, both hoping and dreading that she will catch a glimpse of Lyanna Stark. She does not know what she would say to her good-sister, or even how it would feel to lay eyes upon her at last; she wants to hate her with the same cold fury that she hates the king, and yet she is keenly aware that Queen Lyanna may be her only ally at court. Robb is her nephew, her kin, surely she would not let the king hurt him…
It is the mantra that has sustained her through their journey thus far.
Lyanna is nowhere to be seen; nor is Queen Elia, the king’s other wife – (his true wife, his first wife, Catelyn thinks to herself with no small measure of spite) Catelyn had only seen the then-princess from afar when she had come to court as a girl, but the tales of her is that she is sweet and generous, and she is also a mother who Catelyn imagines certainly feared for her children in troubling times. Perhaps she will help me as well, but perhaps the king had deducted similarly, for neither queen is there to receive them.
“My ladies,” the king says, his voice lilting, soft but somehow commanding enough to fill the entire hall. “Please rise. Welcome to court,” he adds, greeting them as though they were honored guests rather than hostages to their uncle’s good behavior. In Catelyn’s arms, Robb squirms uncomfortably – he has only recently learned to crawl, and he chafes at any sort of confinement, eager to explore the world around him. In Riverrun, Catelyn would acquiesce, but here she only holds him tighter.
The king at least does them the courtesy of not sharing their fate with the entirety of the court, and brings them instead into his inner council room. Lysa accepts the seat she is offered, along with the wine and bread, and avails herself, ravenous after their journey. Catelyn for her part can only manage a bite – it tastes of sawdust in her mouth, but it gives her the protection of guest right, at the very least. She remains standing, even as the king sits at the head of the council table, his hands spread on the table in appeasement.
“Ladies, I would have an end to this unpleasantness,” Rhaegar says, and Catelyn feels her throat constrict - my father, my husband, my betrothed, Lysa’s husband, this king’s own father, countless innocent men…their deaths are all just unpleasantness, she thinks, disbelievingly.
He offers them a smile, warm and somehow intimate, and Catelyn sees the color in Lysa’s face rise. Her sister has never before seen the prince – now the king – and she is as swept up by his beauty as Catelyn had been all those years ago. He is the reason our father is dead, she wants to scream, and she bites tongue until it hurts. He is the reason my son has no father. She drops her gaze to the table, so that she does not have to look upon either of them.
“Let us come to an accord,” Rhaegar continues. “You will both serve as ladies to the queens, afforded all rights and honors due to your positions. In return, the crown will take no further arms against Riverrun. Your uncle will serve as castellan until your brother comes of age, and he will take his rightful seat.”
“And my son?” Catelyn says, finding her voice. “What of Robb?”
Rhaegar’s eyes shift, as though he is just now noticing the babe in her arms. “Robb, mmm?” he says, and his lip curls in a show of amusement, or perhaps just of irony – just a moment, just briefly, before his face settles back into solemnity. “You may keep him here at court with you. There are nursemaids a plenty on hand to help care for him.” The king shifts again, leaning his chin on his knuckles, as though considering further though Catelyn suspects his mind is long made up. “Your good-brother, Benjen Stark, will serve as lord protector of Winterfell, under the advisement of counselors of my choosing,” he declares. “Your son will come of age here at court, and when he is grown, he may return north to claim his birthright.”
Return a man raised in the south, she deduces, gazing down at Robb’s eyes, big and blue and innocent. Return a lord raised in the king’s castle, perhaps raised as a playmate to his sons, absolutely loyal. It is still more than she hoped for, and perhaps in a few years, there will be room for negotiation…
Merely the thought of being a hostage, however prettily he may dress up the term, for years upon years is enough to make Catelyn’s head spin, and she has to turn her thoughts away. “Thank you,” she says instead, and the king waves his hand dismissively.
“The lords who architected a treasonous rebellion are gone. I am not my father. I have no wish to punish women and babies for sins that are not theirs.”
A lump rises in Catelyn’s throat, and she has to force it down, along with her innate denial that her father had been any sort of treasonous rebel. He had been a man of the upmost scruples, who had seen another great lord and his heir murdered by a mad king with only the barest farce of a trial. And still he had struggled with the decision before finally deciding that he could not be loyal to tyranny.
If the king notices her discomfort, he pays it no mind, and he smiles genially, as though they are all great friends. “And after some time has passed, I shall make matches for you both, with good, loyal men,” he offers. “You are both young, after all. Life does not have to end along with the war.”
And yet for so many, Catelyn thinks, it did.
--
They are given rooms befitting their stations, and maids to serve them. Though they are given separate, adjacent chambers, that night Lysa lets herself into Catelyn’s rooms and crawls into bed beside her, the way she would when she was a child. Her warmth beside Catelyn in the bed is comforting, almost lulling her to sleep until Lysa speaks, her voice a soft hush in the dark, quiet room.
“Perhaps it will not be so terrible here after all,” she suggests. “If they treat us like ladies. Many ladies dream of coming to court. And your son will be Lord of Winterfell one day, as he was born to be.”
“That is a long time away,” Catelyn points out softly. “A long time until Robb is a man.”
Lysa gives a non-committal hum, and she rolls to her back to stare at the ceiling in the darkness. Catelyn can make out the outline of her toying with the ends of her braided hair. “And if the king were to make us suitable matches, that would not be the worst thing,” she muses, as though Catelyn had not spoken at all. “He is right, we are young. Our lives need not be over. Perhaps he will pick handsome, young lords for us. We are still highborn ladies, after all. A worthy match for any man.” She huffs to herself. “At the very least, certainly he would not pick a man as old as Lord Jon.”
Catelyn does not answer; there is no room for such optimism in her heart. She had been betrothed to a young, handsome lord once, and had been full of hopes and dreams of how her life would be as his wife. And then Brandon had died, and she had been married to his brother in his place, a stranger not nearly so handsome nor charming. But despite that, when she had held Robb for the first time, she had felt some spark of affection in her heart for the man who had given him to her. She had dared to think that perhaps they would have a good life together after the war ended – not the one she had imagined as a young girl, but something different, something that could be good as well. And then Eddard had died, too, and that hope along with him.
She does not want another husband, she does not want to start again. Lysa calls them young but Catelyn feels a hundred years old at least, carrying the expectations of all those who are gone upon her back. She does not want to hope for the future, when she has been so bitterly disappointed in the past. She just wants to raise her son to manhood, until he can take his rightful seat. That would be her mission, that would be her duty.
Catelyn can hear the rustle of the pillow beneath her sister’s cheek as Lysa turns her head to look at her, waiting for her response. Catelyn closes her eyes instead, pretending to be asleep. She may not be able to participate in her sister’s hopefulness, but she has no desire to crush her spirits. At the very least, one of us should look forward to the morn, she thinks to herself, and soon Lysa’s breathing evens out beside her.
--
For the first week, they are sent to join Queen Elia’s ladies, a group of nearly a dozen. The queen is gracious and welcoming, as though they are there of their own volition. When they are asked to perform a service, it is a small one – to pour some wine, to thread a needle, to play upon the harp. In the afternoon, the children are brought in to visit their mother, and Catelyn puts Robb down on the plush rugs with little Prince Aegon while the Princess Rhaenys charms the room.
The queen tires easily and early, and so the days and their duties are short. It is not such a wretched existence, but it not what Catelyn had hoped for herself, not what she had been raised to expect. She had thought to be the lady of her own great home, managing a household of servants and ladies of her own, and she chafes at the idleness of court life. She is treated respectfully but in truth, she is a nothing and a nobody here, and while Lysa goes to dine in the Great Hall each night, Catelyn takes Robb back to her chambers and dines alone, miserably lonely. She knows it is her own choice, to eat alone, but she knows as unhappy as she is, she would be lonelier still surrounded by the happy chatter of men and women that she did not know or trust.
King’s Landing, she is sure, would never be her home.
It is on one such an evening, a fortnight after their arrival, that a knock comes on the door to her rooms. Catelyn answers cautiously, fearfully – Lysa does not knock, she lets herself in, and Catelyn cannot imagine who else would want to see her. She certainly did not expect the queen – the other queen, the one that Catelyn cannot forget but has yet to lay eyes upon: her dead husband’s sister, Lyanna Stark.
Instinctively, Catelyn curtsies, remembering the courtesies she has been taught since girlhood. “Your Grace,” she murmurs, but she cannot bring herself to meet her good-sister’s eye. Lyanna is carrying a babe in her arms, a boy that must be around Robb’s age, and so Catelyn looks at him instead. He stares back at her with the grey eyes of the Starks; he looks so remarkably like her husband that Catelyn must look away from him, too.
“Lady Catelyn.” She sounds nervous, uncertain, and Catelyn thinks that Queen Elia never sounds unsure of herself, that she is a woman content with her place in the world if only through her pure determination to be so. Her voice sounds young, too, more girl than woman, more girl than queen, and reluctantly, Catelyn drags her gaze to finally land upon her good-sister’s face.
She is smaller than Catelyn had expected, shorter than Catelyn by at least a head, small-breasted and narrow-hipped, her stature more boyish than womanly. Her grey eyes, however, are as serious as her brother’s had been, as world-weary as Catelyn feels. There is very little about her that is queenly – her son is dressed in a fine black shirt slashed with red, but Lyanna’s blue gown is simply cut and unadorned. Beneath the hem, the toes of a pair of riding boots peek out. Her dark hair loose upon her shoulders, her head crownless. She could be just another lady, she could be confused for a serving maid.
“I thought it time our sons met,” Lyanna explains, her chin raised bravely. “They are kin, after all. Forgive me for not coming sooner. I thought you must hate me.”
Taken aback by her frankness, Cateln does not know quite how to reply. “I do not hate you,” she finally offers, but the words sound unconvincing even to her own ears. But hate is not the right word, not for a woman who Catelyn does not know. And yet Catelyn cannot forget all that she has lost because of Lyanna Stark – her father, Brandon, Eddard, her freedom…
She has lost all of those things, as well. The thought creeps into Catelyn’s mind unbidden, and her heart softens momentarily. But she quickly steels herself again, furiously stamping her sympathy down. Lyanna may have suffered great losses as well, but they were the result of her own choices. Lyanna the kidnapped maiden, the unwilling prisoner, had been a figure made for sympathy; Queen Lyanna, the runaway bride, the hastily made wife, is less so.
The sharpness in her eyes and the grimness of her smile suggests that Lyanna is hardly fooled by her weak protestation. However, she does not belabor the point, thankfully, and turns her attention instead to Robb, safe in Catelyn’s arms, where she had scooped him up before answering Lyanna’s knock. “And this must be your son. Why, he looks just like you!” she exclaims.
It is not an unkind remark, and Lyanna is certainly not the first to say it, but it feels like a rebuke all the same. “He is his father’s trueborn son,” Catelyn replies, unable to keep the defensiveness from her voice. “He is a Stark.”
Lyanna’s dark eyebrows rise, surprised. “Of course he is,” she replies, and there is an odd earnestness to her assurance. She is the queen, and Catelyn is one of her ladies, in name at least if not quite in deed, and yet Catelyn cannot help but feel as though Lyanna is trying to please her. “I did not mean to insinuate otherwise.” She nods to the boy in her own arms, leaning him slightly in Catelyn’s direction as though to offer him as proof. “I find myself in a similar situation, you see. I’ve heard you’ve named him Robb?”
“Yes. As his father wished.” If Lyanna is perturbed that her nephew is named for her once-betrothed, for the man who raged a war in her name and lost his life in the process, she hides it well. She reaches out a hand to Robb, who happily grabs onto her index finger in greeting. Little traitor, Catelyn thinks wryly, but she is unsurprised – Robb has always been a gregarious child, eager to interact with anyone who will pay him the least bit of attention.
“It is very nice to meet you, Robb,” Lyanna says seriously, as though addressing a man rather than a babe. “This is your cousin, Jon. I hope the two of you will be fast friends.” She leans down, placing the boy – Jon – on the floor on his rump.
Curious, and despite his few meetings with little Aegon, not very used to the company of other babies, Robb tries eagerly to wiggle from Catelyn’s protective embrace. She reluctantly releases him, setting him down beside Jon. Robb gurgles happily, leaning over and immediately smacking his hand over his cousin’s face. “Robb!” Catelyn scolds, but Jon does not seem terribly bothered, and Lyanna laughs at the sight, the sound like a tinkling bell, pure and light.
“He is so friendly!” she points out. “And adventurous. Like Brandon.” The name hangs heavily between them, and when Lyanna looks up at Catelyn again, her eyes are brimming with tears. “But I have no doubt that he has Ned’s sweet heart,” she adds, her voice wavering. “You did not have time to know my brother Ned well, I know, and I am sorry for it. I am only sorrier that he will never know his son. He would have been a wonderful father. He was so good to me and our brother Benjen when we were small, always so patient and kind…” The tears spill over at that, and Lyanna, unlady-like, swipes the sleeve of her gown over her face, muffling a loud sniffle in the fabric.
Catelyn looks down, uncomfortable and uncertain as to how to reply. She hadn’t really known the man who became her husband. They had spent so little time together before he had rode back to war. He had not been unkind to her, and had treated her gently as he took her maidenhead, but she remembers him mostly as silent and somber, with an innate coolness, as different from Brandon in temperament as a man could be. She is sure he would have been pleased with Robb – men always wanted sons, after all, and in her perhaps biased opinion there is no boy finer in all the Seven Kingdoms – but it is hard to imagine him playing with a babe. “I am sorry for it, too,” she says numbly, and she looks down at the two boys, one dark-haired, one bright-headed. No matter what you may think of her, remember that you need her more than she needs you, she reminds herself sternly. She would need Lyanna to be Robb’s champion, and if the king’s thoughts of a new husband ended up as more than just idle talk, Catelyn may need her to serve as her own champion, as well.
“They are sweet together,” Lyanna says, smiling through her tears as she looks down at the two boys. And indeed, the two babble in their baby language at one another, fast friends unaware of the turmoil that surrounds them. “Rhaegar is so serious, you see, he hardly ever allows Aegon to play with Jon. He has been in sore need of companionship.”
“As has Robb,” Catelyn admits. As much as she loves her son, she knows he should have the company of other children, and while little Aegon and Rhaenys may be brought in to see their mother in the afternoons, it could not match the company of a child who is Robb’s kin.
Lyanna startles her by grasping her hand, her eyes wide and bright with unshed tears. There is something undeniably beguiling about her vulnerability, her candor, and Catelyn finds it easier to imagine now, having met her, that a king would turn a realm upon its head in order to have her as a second wife. “I hope that we, too, can be friends,” Lyanna says. Her hand is small, and her fingertips are callused. “We are sisters now.”
At that declaration, Catelyn must keep herself from pulling her hand back from Lyanna’s grasp. You are no sister of mine, she thinks, remembering her youth in Riverrun – the secret language she and Lysa had devised, the nights spent huddled in Catelyn’s bed, giggling and sharing secrets beneath the covers. But she bites her tongue, swallowing her spite. “Perhaps,” she allows, and the word tastes bitter in her mouth.
--
Catelyn often brings Robb to the small godswood outside the Red Keep, spreading her cloak on the ground before the heart tree. She is unsure what to do once she is there; she follows the Faith of the Seven and she does not know how to pray to the old gods. And even if she did know how to pray to them, the godswood here does not resemble the one Brandon had described in Winterfell. She has heard that the old gods have no eyes below the Neck, and perhaps that is true, but she cannot help but feel it is important to bring Robb there. He is a son of the North, the old gods are his as much as the new ones – perhaps even more so. It may not be the same as Winterfell, but if Robb could at least learn the motions, learn what he ought to do, perhaps he would not seem so terribly southron when he is one day allowed to claim his birthright. He will need a better tutor than I, Catelyn thinks despondently.
His aunt would be the obvious choice to instruct him in such things, but Catelyn cannot bring herself to ask Queen Lyanna for anything. If she asked Lyanna to teach Robb how to pray like a northman, the queen would perhaps mistake that for an overture of forgiveness, and Catelyn does not want to forgive. Not yet.
In any case, Robb is still far too young for any sort of instruction. He shows little interest in the heart tree, focusing instead on trying to crawl off Catelyn’s cloak, giggling when she pulls him back to the middle, obviously thinking it a great game.
The godswood is usually empty at night, and it is a relief to be alone. The other ladies of the court look at her and Lysa so suspiciously, whispering behind their hands, huddling in little groups that she would never be welcome to even if she had the desire to be included. The king does not acknowledge her or Lysa, for better or worse. Elia is endlessly gracious, and Catelyn thinks Lyanna would sooner cut her tongue out than ask a service of her. But the rest of the court knows who they are, knows what they are, and they will not let them forget it. It is all so exhausting, and so lonesome, and somehow being alone is still less lonely than sitting in Queen Elia’s rooms.
She is so used to her solitude in the godswood that when she first catches glimpse of the hooded figure between the trees, she thinks it is her eyes playing tricks on her – perhaps the shadow of a trunk, or the sway of a branch in the moonlight. But when she leans forward, curious despite herself, her eyes squinting through the darkness, she can make out the outline of a man’s boots, and then, trailing her eyes up, the glint of a longsword, peeking from behind the figure’s back.
A gasp tumbles from her lips and she turns away, reaching down to scoop up Robb, but she is too slow, too late, she had been too distracted, and a hand clamps down over her mouth, an arm wrapping around her from behind to pin her arms to her side, and she screams against a leather glove as Robb begins to cry.
“Hush,” a man’s voice growls against her ear. “Don’t scream.”
She doesn’t listen, and she screams again, her arms useless but her legs kicking behind her, seeking purchase. She tries to bite down on the fingers that cover her lips, but the leather of the man’s gloves is too thick, and she cannot build enough momentum in swinging her legs to make the contact of her heel into his shin painful enough to loose his grip. Her hand brushes against a sheathed dagger at his waist and she grabs, but his hand catches her wrist and pulls it away as easily as she drags Robb back onto her cloak when he tries to wander.
And so all she can do, all she can try is to scream and scream and scream, even as he tells her again, be quiet, hush, stop it. The sound is muffled, but surely, surely someone would hear her and would….
And would what? she thinks dimly, in the part of her mind that is not paralyzed with fear, the part that can still rationalize. For she is still within the castle walls, and who more than those she lived and dined beside would wish her harm? She is friendless here, an enemy within their walls for all that the king claims he holds no grudge. Would a guard or knight come to her aid if the king, or one of his retainers – perhaps the Hand, Jon Connington, who always looked at her so hatefully, even from that first day when he came to Riverrun – had decided keeping her for years and years as half-hostage, half-guest would be too much trouble, and she would be better off eliminated? Perhaps they want me dead, she thinks, and tears spring to her eyes. They can kill me, if they only spare Robb, and she stops screaming, trying to catch her breath though her mouth is still covered.
The man who grabbed her hesitates, his grip firm but not painful. “Don’t scream,” he repeats. “I am not going to hurt you, I promise.”
She nods as best she can, her breath quick and staccato in her fear. Slowly, cautiously, the man moves his hand from her mouth, and she keeps her word to not scream, trying instead to swallow down her fear. When she does not cry out, he loosens his grip on her, allowing her to jerk away from his grasp.
“Please,” she begs, turning back to face him as the man releases her, and her voice trembles. “Please, don’t hurt my son, he’s only a baby.” Despite her desire to remain calm, to convince him, her voice rises in her panic. He could do what he willed with her – rape her, murder her – but she must make him spare Robb. She stands atop her spread cloak, the layers of her skirts blocking her son from view.
“Be quiet,” he hisses again in response, and obediently, she falls silent, though she does not move from her protective stance. As though also following the whispered command, Robb similarly stops crying, though Catelyn can hear his sniffles from behind her.
She waits, heart thudding against her ribs.
Had she spent an eternity waiting, she would not have expected the sight that greets her when the man pushes back his hood. In all universes, in all the mad imaginings that would have crossed her mind, she would have never thought to see her husband’s solemn long face looking back at her, returned from the dead.
She cannot help but shout again, a strangled cry of surprise, and she silences herself this time with her own hand to her lips even as her knees give out and she sinks down to sit back on her heels. He crosses to her, kneeling before her with his hands on her arms, as though he fears she may faint – and Catelyn must admit, it is still a possibility. You are dead, she thinks, even as her eyes scan his face, a sight both familiar and yet still strange to her. They told me you died in the south, that you were slain at the Tower of Joy.
Perhaps she is going mad, perhaps the shadows of the forest are indeed playing tricks on her. She is lonely and weary, perhaps she has fallen asleep and her mind is conjuring images, and perhaps she is influenced by the presence of the heart tree. Perhaps the old gods have their eyes on her after all, and they are granting her a kindness, or paying upon her a cruelty – at the moment, both feel equally true.
And yet she can feel the grasp of his fingers on her upper arms, hear the soft hush-rush of his breath as he leans in to examine her face.
“Eddard?” she croaks, his name escaping around her own fingers, as unbidden tears spring to her eyes. “Is it you? Truly?”
“Forgive me, my lady,” he replies quietly. “I did not mean to frighten you. I did not want to summon the attention of any guards.”
Instinctively, she throws her arms around his neck.
She takes him by surprise; he hesitates briefly before embracing her in return, his hands large and wide on her back as she presses her face against his shoulder. Her tears come in earnest now, her fingers curling around the front of his cloak as she breathes in the scent of his skin.
They had spent but a fortnight together in Riverrun; they are little more than strangers still. But trapped alone in the capital, with only a sister who grows too comfortable in their captivity for company and a son who depended on her wholly to protect him, Eddard Stark is more than a welcome sight. He is the rarest of all things, an ally she can trust, perhaps the only person in the entire world who will – who must – share her fervent desire to keep Robb safe above all other things. He is the remnant of her girl-like hopes, returned to her, and she feels almost young again. Little as she knows him, holding him here, she feels as close to home as she has since arriving at King’s Landing. “They told me you were dead,” she says, the words muffled, but she feels him nod in response.
“My sister,” he answers. “She begged me in the tower, to go into exile. We knew by then that the war was lost, that Rhaegar had defeated Robert. And she knew he would show me no mercy, just as he showed Jon Arryn and your father no mercy.”
At his words, Catelyn’s heart falls a bit, and she chokes back a sob. She had not known, until he had said it, that a secret hope had bloomed inside her that perhaps her father’s death had also been a lie, that perhaps he had yet survived just as her husband had. “My father…” she repeats, the words choked, and Eddard gently pushes her away a bit so that he can look at her face.
“I am sorry, Catelyn,” he says, and his eyes are sorrowful. “He fought bravely and honorably. But he is gone.”
She nods in response, her lips trembling, and Eddard hesitantly brings his hands to her face, wiping at the tear tracks on her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “Lya begged me to escape to Essos, but I am no craven who runs to save my own skin,” he continues, and there is a hard edge to his voice that had not been there before.
‘I am only sorrier that he shall never know his son,’ Catelyn recalls Lyanna telling her, and a cold ball of anger forms in her stomach. She had known that her brother lived, but had thought him far away, never to return, at her own suggestion. She had said such kind things of him and yet had apparently believed he would abandon his wife and son to their fates, so that he may live another day. “Who else knows?” she whispers, her thoughts immediately going to the king.
“My sister planned to tell Rhaegar that I was slain by Arthur Dayne, that we died in mutual combat, and that Howland Reed took my bones north for burial. The three of us were all that remained at the Tower of Joy, and Howland would never betray me, nor my sister.” He sighs. “Your uncle knows now as well. I had thought to find you in Riverrun, but you and your sister were gone by the time I arrived.”
When he mentions her and Lysa, he seems to recall then the third member of the party that had been sent to King’s Landing. His attention shifts away from her, to the babe still sitting atop her cape. Robb’s crying may have stopped, but his little face is still pink, his eyes still watery. “May I?” Eddard asks quietly, and Catelyn hesitates briefly, afraid to set off another bout of tears and the racket that would surely accompany that. But she cannot truly deny him, not this particular request, and so she bends down to scoop up their son, and she hands Robb to his father.
To her relief, Robb does not cry out again. Instead, guileless blue eyes meet those serious grey ones in a solemn stare that seems to last an eternity.
“I named him Robb, as you wished,” she says softly, and she sees a flicker of a smile at the corner of Eddard’s mouth, though he does not raise his eyes from the boy in his arms.
“Robb,” he echoes quietly. “I had hoped to name you for a king, but I hope you will wear the name with pride all the same, and grow to have your namesake’s courage.” Eddard looks at her now, and there is an unusual warmth in his normally stoic face. “Thank you, Catelyn,” he says earnestly. “Thank you for keeping him safe, when I could not.”
Despite herself, Catelyn feels her eyes fill with tears once more. “You are here now,” she reminds him. “Where will we go?” His sister had told him to go to Essos, he had said. It is a frightening thought, a long journey to a land where they have neither family nor friend, but anything would be better than spending Robb’s minority trapped in the dragon’s lair. He can’t marry me off now, she thinks, and she wants to laugh – the king may take two wives, if he wish it and will it, but for the rest of the realm bigamy is still outlawed.
She does not ask if he plans to take them with him, wherever it is. She may be bound as his wife to obey his wishes, but she does not plan on giving him a choice in this matter.
“To Winterfell,” Eddard answers firmly. “It is our home.” He frowns, looking down at Robb, his hand coming up to cup the back of his head. “It is a long way,” he says doubtfully. “I can filch a second horse from the stables, but no carriage or wheelhouse.”
“I have ridden with him before,” Catelyn quickly assures him, neatly omitting the fact that she had last ridden with Robb when he had been a sleepy newborn, content to nestle against her bosom, rather than an active babe that seems to grow heavier by the day. “I can make it. We can make it.” Eddard looks doubtful as he glances back down at Robb, and Catelyn cannot keep the edge of panic from her voice as she presses on. “We will have to make it,” she insists. “You cannot leave us here to be his hostages, when he finds out you are alive…”
“Peace, Catelyn,” Eddard interrupts gently. “I will not leave you behind, I promise.” He yields Robb back to her, and he comes solid and squirming into her arms, already trying to escape to the ground, as though to remind her of the challenge of what she is proposing. “I will return here tomorrow at midnight. Bring only what you can carry on horseback. Rest well tonight, for we will have to ride through the night. Tell no one where you are going, or that you have seen me.”
She nods silently, even as guilty thoughts of Lysa fill her head. Her sister had adjusted remarkably well to life in King’s Landing, but surely she would worry when Catelyn went missing – and not only for Catelyn, but for her own safety if foul play were to be suspected. And Lysa has always been prone to panic…
She cannot think of Lysa. She must instead think of Robb, of Robb and of Eddard who is alive, though that night he is gone as quickly as he had appeared and she is left alone before the heart tree once more, with only the promise of tomorrow serving as a reminder that she had not merely dreamt the entire thing.
--
Eddard had told her to rest, but she tosses and turns all night, anxious and somehow both more and less afraid than she had been the day before. It is easy to feign illness when she rises with dark circles beneath her eyes, to send word with Lysa that she will not attend upon Queen Elia that day but would rest in her chamber instead. The queen’s delicate health makes the court even more wary of sickness and disease than one would normally expect, and so no one comes to see her – and Catelyn prefers it that way.
Even Lysa stands far away in the doorway, shifting nervously from foot to foot before asking if she should call the maester. Catelyn smiles tremulously from her bed, the sheets pulled to her chin, and declines. “I just need to sleep,” she says, and she shuts her eyes until she hears the gentle click of the door that signals her sister’s departure.
Once she is sure she is alone, she tears the curtains from her window, standing on the hem so that she can rip the fabric into shreds before taking up her sewing needle to try and craft a makeshift sling, like the one her septa had presented her with to ride with Robb in Riverrun. She must make this one larger, for Robb is much bigger now, and she cannot imagine he will be well pleased by the situation, as much as he hates to be confined. There is no helping it, she thinks grimly, and in her distraction she pricks herself with her needle, and she must suck the drop of blood from her thumb, the taste metallic on her tongue. We are escaping a much greater prison.
She has precious little coin with her, but she sews what she does have into the lining of her dark travel gown. She dresses as darkly and plainly as she can in navy, keeping a mind to the fact that they must ride through the night, though the hem and sleeves of her gown are embroidered with red thread. She will never pass as a servant in the castle halls nor a peasant on the road, but perhaps the color of her clothing will help obscure her. It would be a long way to Winterfell, and there is every chance that the king would send men after them once he discovers that she has gone.
Hopefully there will be leagues between us first, she worries, and she pushes the scant belongings she plans to carry with her under her bed, letting the sheet fall to cover them from any unexpected visitor.
The hours pass slowly, and the time between when Robb falls asleep and she must leave to meet Eddard at the godswood is agonizing without any distraction. She tries again to sleep, to read by the fading candlelight on her desk, but her mind is racing far too much to partake in such leisures. She sits by the window instead, now bare with the remnants of the curtains strewn across the floor, watching the sun sink below the horizon. Although she expects it, she jumps every time she hears the low, dull toll of the bell at the Great Sept, marking the hour. She counts the chimes silently to herself, and her heart beats along to the low chords it strikes.
Finally it is time to gather the satchel with her few possessions, to lift Robb carefully from his cradle and bring him to the sling at her chest. He sleeps on, curling comfortably against her bosom, and she only hopes that he will continue to sleep for a few more hours before waking and making his displeasure known.
The halls are empty and silent, the torches in their scones casting long, eerie shadows. Her door seems unnaturally loud when she shuts it behind her, and she winces as the latch clicks back into place. She is wearing her riding boots, and her footsteps are heavier than her normal slippers on the stone floor as she starts to cross the hall.
“Cat?”
She whirls around, terrified, clutching Robb close to her, denials ready on her lips, shocked to have been caught so quickly. She had not thought herself so closely guarded, but she should have known better, that in King’s Landing even the walls have eyes. She could claim she feared Robb ill as well, that she is on her way to the maester, she could claim that he cannot sleep unless she walks with him and that is why she is wandering the corridors…
But it is only Lysa, framed in her doorway in the chambers next to Catelyn’s, bare-footed and in a white night shift, holding a candle high to see her sister’s face. “Cat?” Lysa repeats, her voice thick with sleep and her eyes heavy-lidded. “Cat, where are you going?”
Catelyn hesitates. She has kept secrets from Lysa before, but only a precious few, and she has never lied directly to her sister. But the secrets she had kept in her youth were the ones she most thought had to be preserved – Lysa has always been too yielding, too eager to please, too loose with her tongue. And what if she asks to come? Catelyn did not think it likely, her sister seems to enjoy court life, but it is a possibility. How could Catelyn refuse her, when she has always been her little sister’s protector? How could she explain that she had to think of Robb first, of her new family? “I am going for a walk,” she finally says – almost a lie, but true enough to ease her conscience.
Searching through the darkness, Lysa’s eyes fall to the bag looped over Catelyn’s arm. “You have a satchel,” she points out, doubtful. “What could you possibly need to bring with you?”
“Just some things for Robb,” she answers, stilted and uncomfortable, and she sees her sister frown. Please, please do not ask anything more, Catelyn begs silently, and perhaps it is the bond of sisters, because although she does not speak further, Lysa lowers her candle, her hand going to the handle of her door.
“All right,” Lysa says, her voice laden with uncertainty. “I will see you in the morning, then.” It sounds half a question, a hint of anxiety laced around the edges, and Catelyn tries as best she can to offer her a reassuring smile.
“Good night, Lysa,” she says gently.
Goodbye, Lysa, she thinks.