LITMIR.BIZ

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own room was smaller, but handsomely furnished and comfortable, with a fire burning in the hearth. Lame Lothar assured them that Robb would have an entire suite, as befit a king. “If there is anything you require, you need only tell one of the guards.” He bowed and withdrew, limping heavily as he made his way down the curving steps.

      “We should post our own guards,” Catelyn told her brother. She would rest easier with Stark and Tully men outside her door. The audience with Lord Walder had not been as painful as she feared, yet all the same she would be glad to be done with this. A few more days, and Robb will be off to battle, and me to a comfortable captivity at Seagard. Lord Jason would show her every courtesy, she had no doubt, but the prospect still depressed her.

      She could hear the sounds of horses below as the long column of mounted men wound their way across the bridge from castle to castle. The stones rumbled to the passage of heavy-laden wayns. Catelyn went to the window and gazed out, to watch Robb’s host emerge from the eastern twin. “The rain seems to be lessening.”

      “Now that we’re inside.” Edmure stood before the fire, letting the warmth wash over him. “What did you make of Roslin?”

      Too small and delicate. Childbirth will go hard on her. But her brother seemed well pleased with the girl, so all she said was, “Sweet.”

      “I believe she liked me. Why was she crying?”

      “She’s a maid on the eve of her wedding. A few tears are to be expected.” Lysa had wept lakes the morning of their own wedding, though she had managed to be dry-eyed and radiant when Jon Arryn swept his cream-and-blue cloak about her shoulders.

      “She’s prettier than I dared hope.” Edmure raised a hand before she could speak. “I know there are more important things, spare me the sermon, septa. Even so … did you see some of those other maids Frey trotted out? The one with the twitch? Was that the shaking sickness? And those twins had more craters and eruptions on their faces than Petyr Pimple. When I saw that lot, I knew Roslin would be bald and one-eyed, with Jinglebell’s wits and Black Walder’s temper. But she seems gentle as well as fair.” He looked perplexed. “Why would the old weasel refuse to let me choose unless he meant to foist off someone hideous?”

      “Your fondness for a pretty face is well known,” Catelyn reminded him. “Perhaps Lord Walder actually wants you to be happy with your bride.” Or more like, he did not want you balking over a boil and upsetting all his plans. “Or it may be that Roslin is the old man’s favorite. The Lord of Riverrun is a much better match than most of his daughters can hope for.”

      “True.” Her brother still seemed uncertain, however. “Is it possible the girl is barren?”

      “Lord Walder wants his grandson to inherit Riverrun. How would it serve him to give you a barren wife?”

      “It rids him of a daughter no one else would take.”

      “Small good that will do him. Walder Frey is a peevish man, not a stupid one.”

      “Still … it is possible?”

      “Yes,” Catelyn conceded, reluctantly. “There are illnesses a girl can have in childhood that leave her unable to conceive. There’s no reason to believe that Lady Roslin was so afflicted, though.” She looked round the room. “The Freys have received us more kindly than I had anticipated, if truth be told.”

      Edmure laughed. “A few barbed words and some unseemly gloating. From him that’s courtesy. I expected the old weasel to piss in our wine and make us praise the vintage.”

      The jest left Catelyn strangely disquieted. “If you will excuse me, I should change from these wet clothes.

      “As you wish.” Edmure yawned. “I may nap an hour.”

      She retreated to her own room. The chest of clothes she’d brought from Riverrun had been carried up and laid at the foot of the bed. After she’d undressed and hung her wet clothing by the fire, she donned a warm wool dress of Tully red and blue, washed and brushed her hair and let it dry, and went in search of Freys.

      Lord Walder’s black oak throne was empty when she entered the hall, but some of his sons were drinking by the fire. Lame Lothar rose clumsily when he saw her. “Lady Catelyn, I thought you would be resting. How may I be of service?”

      “Are these your brothers?” she asked.

      “Brothers, half-brothers, good brothers, and nephews. Raymund and I shared a mother. Lord Lucias Vypren is my half-sister Lythene’s husband, and Ser Damon is their son. My half-brother Ser Hosteen I believe you know. And this is Ser Leslyn Haigh and his sons, Ser Harys and Ser Donnel.”

      “Well met, sers. Is Ser Perwyn about? He helped escort me to Storm’s End and back, when Robb sent me to speak with Lord Renly. I was looking forward to seeing him again.”

      “Perwyn is away,” Lame Lothar said. “I shall give him your regards. I know he will regret having missed you.”

      “Surely he will return in time for Lady Roslin’s wedding?”

      “He had hoped to,” said Lame Lothar, “but with this rain … you saw how the rivers ran, my lady.”

      “I did indeed,” said Catelyn. “I wonder if you would be so good as to direct me to your maester?”

      “Are you unwell, my lady?” asked Ser Hosteen, a powerful man with a square strong jaw.

      “A woman’s complaint. Nothing to concern you, ser.”

      Lothar, ever gracious, escorted her from the hall, up some steps, and across a covered bridge to another stair. “You should find Maester Brenett in the turret on the top, my lady.”

      Catelyn half expected that the maester would be yet another son of Walder Frey’s, but Brenett did not have the look. He was a great fat man, bald and double-chinned and none too clean, to judge from the raven droppings that stained the sleeves of his robes, yet he seemed amiable enough. When she told him of Edmure’s concerns about Lady Roslin’s fertility, he chuckled. “Your lord brother need have no fear, Lady Catelyn. She’s small, I’ll grant you, and narrow in the hips, but her mother was the same, and Lady Bethany gave Lord Walder a child every year.”

      “How many lived past infancy?” she asked bluntly.

      “Five.” He ticked them off on fingers plump as sausages. “Ser Perwyn. Ser Benfrey. Maester Willamen, who took his vows last year and now serves Lord Hunter in the Vale. Olyvar, who squired for your son. And Lady Roslin, the youngest. Four boys to one girl. Lord Edmure will have more sons than he knows what to do with.”

      “I am sure that will please him.” So the girl was like to be fertile as well as fair of face. That should put Edmure’s mind at ease. Lord Walder had left her brother no cause for complaint, so far as she could see.

      Catelyn did not return to her own room after leaving the maester; instead she went to Robb. She found Robin Flint and Ser Wendel Manderly with him, along with the Greatjon and his son, who was still called the Smalljon though he threatened to overtop his father. They were all damp. Another man, still wetter, stood before the fire in a pale pink cloak trimmed with white fur. “Lord Bolton,” she said.

      “Lady Catelyn,” he replied, his voice faint, “it is a pleasure to look on you again, even in such trying times.”

      “You are kind to say so.” Catelyn could feel gloom in the room. Even the Greatjon seemed somber and subdued. She looked at their grim faces and said, “What’s happened?”

      “Lannisters on the Trident,” said Ser Wendel unhappily. “My brother is taken again.”

      “And Lord Bolton has brought us further word of Winterfell,” Robb added. “Ser Rodrik was not the only good man to die. Cley Cerwyn and Leobald Tallhart were slain as well.”

      “Cley Cerwyn was only a boy,” she said, saddened. “Is this true, then? All dead, and Winterfell gone?”

      Bolton’s pale eyes met her own. “The ironmen burned both castle and winter town. Some of your people were taken back to the Dreadfort by my

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