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Robb Returns by The Dark Scribbler
 Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: K+, English, Fantasy & Adventure, Eddard S./Ned, Robb S., Theon G., Domeric B., Words: 627k+, Favs: 6k+, Follows: 6k+, Published: Jul 16, 2015 Updated: Sep 287,744Chapter 53
Ned
He stared at the map again as he waited for Cat to bring Sansa to his solar. The letter from Lord Redfort lay on the table and he thought about that other message that lay with in it. 'The Redfort prepares for war,' Lord Redfort had written. 'I am told Runestone does too. The Stark calls for aid. Command us.'
The call had indeed been heard South of the Neck and he needed to work out the implications now. The Redfort and Runestone owed their allegiance to Jon as the Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale. For them to send help to the North would mean that Jon would have to be told about what was going on. There were political implications now.
The sound of footsteps and the noise of the door opening dragged him away from his thoughts and he looked over to see Cat leading his oldest daughter into the room before closing the door very firmly behind them.
"Sansa, be seated. I hope that we didn't tear you away from anything important?"
She shook her head, looking a little bewildered. "I was watching Domeric give cousin Robert a riding lesson on a pony. He seemed very intent."
"Domeric or Robert?"
She smiled a little. "Both. Annah was watching intently on one side and Domeric was on the other telling Robert what to do and what to look for on the horse. Robert seemed very keen to learn." She then frowned a little. "Cousin Robert seems sharper than he had been before, Father."
"He is, I know," Ned agreed, as he placed a chair to one side for Cat, fetched his own chair and then stared intently at her. "Sansa, we must talk about a very important subject. Did you know that Domeric Bolton had asked me for your hand in marriage?"
She turned a little pink and sat up straighter in her seat. "I… I did know. Domeric mentioned it to me. He was very respectful and considerate – knightly in fact." Then she peered at them both. "You have thought about it for some time Father?"
He leant back in his seat. "I have. It is not a thing to be taken lightly, your future happiness. Especially as a marriage between a Stark and a Bolton would have… ramifications. You know the somewhat vexed history of our two houses, do you not?"
Sansa stared at him and then laughed nervously. "But Father – that is all ancient history."
He stared back at her and then passed a weary hand over his eyes. "Oh, Gods," he muttered, "It seems I neglected your training as well." Then he looked at Cat. "What nonsense has that Septa been teaching her?"
"I will enquire," Cat replied in a cold voice and with a long-suffering look at the ceiling. "And yes, we should have taught her otherwise."
"Mother?" Sansa asked incredulously.
Ned cleared his throat. "Sansa – this is important. You might think that it is ancient history, but it is not. It still has relevance. I have an… understanding with Roose Bolton, as I know what kind of a man he is. He secretly yearns for the old days, when his family had certain… hobbies." Sansa turned white – but less white than he might have thought. Interesting. Did she suspect?
"And if Roose Bolton was offered a chance at supplanting us, say if I died and Robb became Lord of Winterfell, then he might try, if the opportunity presented itself. He is a cautious man, but given sufficient incentive he might cast off the mask and reveal his true face. And given the monster that was his bastard son, we have to wonder how closely that particular apple fell to the tree it grew from. So you can see that I have concerns about Domeric."
Sansa had grown even paler. "Father-"
"Did Domeric tell you about his half-brother?"
"He did. He said that if he had known half the things he now knows about him he would have ridden out and cut him down like the animal he was, even though he would have been labelled a kinslayer."
Ah. That was a good point. She started to open her mouth again and he raised a hand in a gesture for her to be silent. "I have heard him say something similar. When I first heard that he was coming here I wanted a chance to observe him closely. Given who his father is and given what I later heard about his half-brother, I wanted to watch him very closely indeed." He leant back in his chair again. "What I have seen of him has been good. He is courteous, well-read, behaves well around the other children and above all I have heard nothing bad about his behaviour from the standpoint of the smallfolk and the servants. That last point is important."
Her face scrunched slightly as she thought about it, but he then ploughed on. "Part of the reason why I have waited for us to have this conversation is the fact that I wanted to observe him. The other reason is that I was waiting for a reply to a raven I sent to Lord Redfort in the Vale, where Domeric was fostered. He sent me this today." He lifted the letter.
"Lord Redfort is very complimentary about Domeric," Cat said softly. "And he has written a great deal about him. About how he learnt to ride and then passed on those lessons to others. About he treated the servants there fairly. And how none of the smallfolk made a single complaint against him."
"Aye, the letter took us some time to read, but was very detailed." He looked at his daughter. "Lord Redfort had also heard of Roose Bolton and wanted to keep an eye on him. It seems that there was no need. Domeric… is not like his father. In fact he absorbed a great deal from Lord Redfort and his sons about what it means to be knightly."
Sansa smiled at that and sat even straighter. "Father," she said hesitantly, "Domeric and I have… talked about his plans for his house. And he does have them. He told me that he will never follow the path that his ancestors followed and which he suspects that his father yearns for."
And then his daughter took a deep breath. "He has asked my help for something Father. The design of a new banner for his house. He has told me that when he succeeds his father he will replace the banner of the Flayed Man with another one. We have been discussing what would be fit."
Ned stared at her and then looked at Cat, who raised an eyebrow in surprise. "A new banner would fly over the Dreadfort?"
"Yes Father."
That was… astonishing. Such a thing had not been heard of for many a long year in the North. The noble families had their banners and sigils and they stuck to those banners and sigils. For Domeric Bolton to discuss this with Sansa meant that he was more than serious, he was in deadly earnest.
He stroked the tip of his nose for a long moment and then he looked at Cat, who nodded the barest tilt of her head. "Sansa, should we agree to Domeric's suit then you must understand something. Marriage can be an alliance between families – and more than that. It is not just a matter of providing heirs. When I married your mother I barely knew her, something I regret very much. But we forged a love that has withstood much and I rely on her for many things.
"Should you marry Domeric then there is something that you must hold to. As well as giving him children and helping to run the Dreadfort and the area around it, you must keep him to this path that he has outlined to you. Life here in the North is never easy and there is a Winter coming that will freeze many men and women down to their very bones. The Long Night comes, Sansa, you know it, as we all do. As does Domeric. He must never be allowed to go down the road that his father secretly yearns for. He must never produce a Ramsey Snow. Preventing that, keeping him the Domeric Bolton of the Redfort, will be one of your tasks, should you marry him. And it will be a hard task given the war that will come."
Sansa was very pale as she stared at him. So, to that matter, was Cat. He knew that his wife knew very well what he was asking their daughter to do, how important it was. "Sansa, sweetling, we would have you happy," Cat said after a moment. "But we would also have you open your eyes to what a marriage with Domeric Bolton would mean. As your father said, there is the Long Winter coming and a war with the Others. But you cannot let that distract you from your duty if you marry Domeric. Now – do you need time to think about this?"
Sansa sat very still for a long moment, her eyes far away as she thought things through. There was a struggle visible on her face, one that she had obviously not expected to ever have to confront. "No," she said eventually. "I believe in Domeric. I have talked to him, considered his words. Given your views and those of Lord Redfort… I can only say again that I believe in him. Mother, Father – I love him."
He looked at her gravely and then at Cat, who raised her eyebrows at him and then lowered them when he nodded seriously at her. "Very well," he said with a slight smile, "I shall tell Domeric that we look favourably upon his suit. And then-" Ned felt the smile slip from his face. "Then I shall send a raven to Roose Bolton. He and I have much to discuss."
Jory
The boy who had once been so pale and wrong in the head pulled on the reins and the little pony slowed to a halt, before turning in a careful walk at the gentle urgings of the boy. Only when the pony was facing the other way did he look up at the watchers.
"Good," said Domeric Bolton, "Very good indeed Robert. You've done well."
Robert Arryn beamed widely at them all, especially when Jory and Annah both smiled at him. "Domeric, can I ride him a little further tomorrow?"
The son of the Lord of the Dreadfort appeared to think about it, his hand rubbing at his nose – but Jory could see the small smile that he was concealing under his hand. "I think so. A little further every day. Your horse is important Robert. It's getting used to you, just as you are getting used to it. You wouldn't expect to suddenly be forced to walk for ten miles with a pack on your back, would you?"
Robert Arryn shook his head, his eyes suddenly very wide and thoughtful. Then he solemnly dismounted, held the reins in his hand and looked at Domeric. "I had not thought of that," he said musingly and then looked at his horse. "I wish I'd had my own horse at King's Landing. Mother never let me near one. How can I get one here?"
"You ask me or your Uncle Ned and we will get you one. Do you want that one?"
Jory started a little. Lady Stark could be very quiet sometimes. "My Lady," he said formally. "Lord Robert has been practicing his riding skills."
"So I see," she said with a smile. "I watched for from afar."
Robert Arryn beamed at her. "Aunt Catelyn! Were you really watching me?"
"I was - You are getting better and better!"
His smile got even wider, before he suddenly became more serious. "I like this pony very much, Aunt Catelyn. His name is Surefoot."
"A good name for a horse," she said and then looked at Jory and Domeric. "Who picked him out?"
"I did Lady Stark," Domeric said quietly. "He seemed to have the best temperament for your nephew. He's young as well. They seem a good match." Something seemed to pass between them and Lady Stark nodded slightly before turning back to Robert.
"Well then, as you seem to like him, would you like Surefoot to be your horse?"
The little boy stared up at his aunt with very wide eyes. "He would be mine?"
Domeric squatted down to be on the same eye level as the boy. "He would be yours. But you would have to take care of him. A good knight takes care of his horse. He'll rely on you for many things. Others will muck him out, but you must teach him more about riding and you must groom him. It's a great responsibility, Robert."
Robert Arryn looked from Domeric to Lady Stark and then back again. And then he set his chin in a manner that made him look very like his father. "Then I accept it." He sounded older than his years for a moment. He nodded almost formally. "I shall lead him back to the stables." The last was punctuated with a massive yawn that he tried desperately to suppress.
"Let us do that together, Lady Stark said with a smile. And then perhaps a honeycake or two, a cup of milk and a story? You've had a long day, Robert." She looked up. "Domeric, Lord Stark wishes to see you in his solar. I suspect that you know what it is about. Annah, I shall take care of young Robert." She smiled rather enigmatically at Annah, who blushed for some reason and then she left with the boy and his new pony. Domeric Bolton was standing there, white as a sheet. After a moment he swallowed with a gulp, smiled wanly at Jory and Annah and then left.
"Lady Stark is taking her nephew to the stables. Lord Stark is in his solar. There is little chance, I hope that anyone with red eyes will wander past?" Annah sounded amused – and something else.
"No," he said slowly as he took a cautious step towards her. "I think not." He froze and then stared around them. "My apologies, I did not mean to tempt fate."
She laughed softly and then sobered. "That night, before Lord Stark interrupted us with his eyes of red fire, what were you about to ask me?"
He looked at her and all of a sudden his heart was hammering in his chest as if he had run a mile. "I said that I was – and still am – looking forwards to showing you the North."
"And I am keen to see it. I do not know how long I shall be here. I am just Lord Robert's nursemaid. He will not always need me."
"What will you do when he does not?"
"Go home."
"And where is home?"
She smiled at him. "Wherever my heart is."
"And where is your heart? Wait – I would tell you where mine is."
She stepped a little closer to him. "And where is yours?" She was almost whispering now.
"With yours." And with that he finally took her in his arms and kissed her. And judging by the way that she stepped into the embrace and then melted against him as she returned that kiss, he knew that she'd be staying in Winterfell for a while.
Domeric
He paused in from of the door, before taking a deep breath and then knocking. After what felt like an age he finally heard a voice call: "Come."
He opened the door, stepped in and then closed it again. Lord Stark was standing by his desk. He was dressed in his usual leathers but there was a formality about him that made him stand a little straighter and taller. This was important.
And… the desk also held something else. The Fist of Winter. This was beyond important now. This was about the future of his very House. He felt his legs shake for a moment and then he stiffened them. He had to be strong for this moment.
"You asked to see me, Lord Stark."
"I did indeed Domeric. Take a seat please."
He sat carefully and then looked at Lord Stark, who looked back at him with his head tilted slightly to one side and his hand stroking his chin, which he did when he was thinking very hard. After a moment Lord Stark smiled slightly.
"Domeric, I have been considering your request to marry Sansa. Considering it mostly carefully indeed. I am sorry for the time that it has taken to give you an answer on this, but it was a matter of the greatest import for me. I even wrote to Lord Redfort to ask his opinion of you."
Domeric felt his cheeks burn. Lord Redfort was a man whose good opinion he had always worked hard to earn. Very hard indeed. Lord Redfort was the man that he had secretly wished could have been his father. Just but fair. A true knight. "I respect Lord Redfort very much indeed, Lord Stark. May I ask what he said about me?"
Lord Stark leant back in his chair a little. "Nothing but good things. No complaints were ever made against you in your years at the Redfort – just the opposite in fact. He said that it was an honour to know the fine young man that you became."
He felt his eyes moisten for a moment as he remembered his time at the Redfort. How he missed that place. "That was most kind of him."
"It was. It also fitted in with my own observations of you. I have watched you most carefully, Domeric. We Starks pick our marriage alliances most carefully. For a Bolton to marry a Stark… well, there will be many who wonder the reason, given the history between our two families. Now I know what that reason is. I have talked to Sansa. You are in love."
His cheeks reddened again. "I do not deny it, Lord Stark." His voice seemed squeaky in his own ears and he cursed his reaction. "I do love Sansa."
Lord Stark's eyes narrowed a fraction as he looked at him. "She has also confided in me that you have plans for House Bolton. Plans that might include a new banner. Enlighten me if you can."
He sat there for a long moment as he ran though his answers in his own mind. Finally he settled on the brutal truth. "The Flayed Man banner is a link to a past that I want no part of. I would never flay a man, the very thought is abhorrent to me. An upright red sword on a white background perhaps, or a sword over a cross of red on a white background. I have not yet decided – I gave Sansa my word that we would settle it together. But no more Flayed Man, or the colours thereof."
There was a short silence as Lord Stark absorbed this. "Your father will not approve."
"I do not care. I honour my father on many things. This is not one of those things. This is more important. I will be Lord of the Dreadfort one day. I would not have it feared. I would have it respected."
Another short silence. And then Lord Stark stood. "Good. Then your suit to marry Sansa is approved. I will send a raven to the Dreadfort, summoning your father. He and I will talk – about many things. There is one last thing though. Marriages last for many years, the Old Gods providing. I would have my daughter Sansa happy throughout those years. And that is the greatest condition of all."
Domeric fell to his knees and then placed a hand on the Fist of Winter. "Lord Stark, by the Old Gods, I, Domeric Bolton, do swear this oath of my own free will. Should I ever disappoint, betray or harm your daughter, Sansa Stark, I will take whatever punishment you deem necessary. Even death. This, I swear."
Perhaps it was the moment, or perhaps it was his imagination, but he felt the floor shake just a fraction as he said those words.
"This oath I accept, as the Stark in Winterfell."
Domeric looked up at the man who was going to become his Goodfather. And for a moment he fancied that he saw red fire in the eyes of Lord Stark.
Tyrion
Every time they stopped he'd find his eyes looking at the horizon, at the nearest crag or hill. He was looking for links. He was starting to think that he was finding them. He looked down at the map on the pommel of the saddle as they rode North. He was also taking notes as they went, because what he was seeing was both fascinating and deeply worrying.
The North was preparing. Preparing for two things in particular. The first, given by the amount of sowing and field clearance, was Winter. A long and, judging by the amount of repairwork being undertaken on homes and buildings, a terrible one. The second thing was war. Men were drilling when they weren't working on the fields of chopping wood and storing it for drying out.
They stopped for lunch near another crag and as he dismounted he stole a look at Dacey Surestone. The closer that they got to Winterfell the quieter and more terse she became. He suspected that she would have some anguished words with Lord Stark as to why he had not acknowledged the news of the death of her beloved father.
He ate quickly and then stumped over to the crag, leaving the others behind him. They were used to this by now, so they no longer sent silly questions in his direction any more. Yes, this looked as if steps had been carved in the side of it, curving upwards. In some areas the stone looked almost blackened, as if great fires had been set repeatedly at the base of the steps.
Something cracked under his feet and he looked down. He was standing on loose shards of stone, but here and there, once in a while there were – yes. There. He bent down and picked up a shard of a particular shape and colour. It was an arrowhead, or at least part of one. Who knew how long it had been laying there? He peered at it closely. Dragonglass, or obsidian. Just like the other fragments had found scattered around the other crags he had seen. Now, to find such things at one crag would have been interesting, two a co-incidence – but five? No, that meant something.
He just had no idea what.
He pulled the little bag from his pouch, opened it, placed the partial arrowhead in with the others he had found, tugged it shut again and then walked back to the others. As he did he noticed another mound of earth about 100 yards to one side. The earth was bare and barren and not a thing grew on it. He shivered a little and then remounted.
They made good progress that day, better than he could have imagined just a fortnight before. The road was good – recently repaired. Which was a good thing, given the amount of traffic that seemed to be on it.
That night they stopped at one of the best inns that Tyrion had seen so far in the North, a formidable place that looked almost like a manor house. It had a bathhouse that was linked to a hot spring and Tyrion soaked away his aches and pains in some luxury, with a mug of cold ale in one hand and a scrubbing brush almost as long as himself in the other. The Inn of Sanctuary was its name and it also did a damn good supper, well-cooked venison. The girls looked clean and scrubbed, but he did not avail himself of one.
Instead he watched Dacey Surestone. She had used the baths in the woman's section of the bathhouse, emerging scrubbed and clean but almost wan. She ate quietly and then had wandered outside. Tyrion viewed her passage, mulled things over, sighed and then drank the last of his wine, marked a place in his book and then strode over to the door.
Night had fallen and he had trouble at first working out where she was. Then he saw her. She was standing to one side, staring up at the stars. And the stars – what stars! The sky was clear of clouds and the stars blazed down. He could even see that great long ribbon of light that told of a huge belt of stars.
"A wondrous sight, the stars," he said softly as he walked up to her. "I wish that I had studied them better."
There was a long pause and then she finally spoke. "My father loved them. He taught me much about them. The Surestones have been watching the skies since time out of mind. They are beautiful. And I wish that I did not see the threat that hangs in them."
He eyed her out of the corner of his eye. "Threat?"
"Do you see the Crook?"
He peered at the horizon. "Aye." Then he paused. "Oh. I see the base of it as well. You can't even see that in King's Landing at this time of year. Or in the Stormlands."
"It's one of the things that we descendants of the First Men must look for. When the base of the Crook appears, when it starts to grow higher, it's a sign." She sounded… tired and almost defeated.
"A sign of what?"
"The Long Winter comes, Tyrion Lannister. It comes. As do the Others. And even Casterly Rock will shiver." She looked at him and then smiled a smile of infinite tiredness. "The Others come. The Stark calls for aid. I am needed." And then she sighed and walked back into the inn.
Tyrion stood there for a long, long, moment, staring up at the stars. And then he shivered, as if his spine had been brushed with ice, before going back inside as well. Winterfell tomorrow. And perhaps answers too.
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