Winterfell (12 years later)
While her sister and brothers hurried to the banqueting hall, Ryella rode out early in the morning, gazing across the great field where the statues of the ancestors rose above the horizon. She watched the field she loved so much, the land of her ancestors that she would have to leave under the terms of the pact with Jon Snow if she truly took it with him. This morning, too, she watched the birds' flight, looking for signs in the clouds, in the colour of the sky, in the reflection of the river's water, as her brother Rodrik had taught her. She led her horse up to a small hill surrounded by willows, from where she could see the long stretch of the Last River and the large ford marked with coloured wolf flags, where the river was passable with dry feet. The sudden heat, which had made the trees blossom after the sleep of the long winter, was abating. The woods on the far bank, where Dreadfort stood, now seemed a distant grey streak on the horizon. She looked at the slowly flowing river. A water snake, hunting for frog, crept gently into the riverbed and disappeared somewhere among the roots of the bank. The current was slow now, the spring tide had receded, the tongue of the tiny, blackly shimmering waves licking the shore with calm serenity. Ryella knew the Karstarks would be here soon. Word had come yesterday of Rickard's arrival from her father's swift-footed couriers on horseback, and she knew Jon Snow was among them. Jon Snow had not been able to come in the autumn, due to the confusion that followed the unexpected death of King Baratheon, as he had promised almost twenty years ago. But now that the trees of Winterfell are in bloom again after a long winter's slumber, he is coming at last. Ryella could hardly contain her joy. "In these declining times, when the Others walk the realm with human faces, showing no mercy to kings - as her father told her - there can hardly be any cause for joy today." She didn't care now about her father, Robb Stark. Around her life in its thousand shapes throbbed in everything. The trees, already dying in autumn, bore green leaves; on the ground at her feet swarmed the various rodents of the field as if born of the earth; a pair of brown hawks circled above the veiled field. When she asked about Jon Snow, Wild Osha gave her a prediction. She prophesied of saliva and blood, and when Ryella looked into the golden bowl, she saw a strange sign. She saw a black rider approaching on an ornate horse, and she saw a white-trunked crow-tree, which rose to the sky with wondrously huge leaves. The man flew his horse along the trunk of that tree as if it had wings. Now, however, she saw the lone rider galloping in the distance, not from across the river, but from the direction of the castle of Dreadfort. The figure was attempting to come under cover of the tall, stooping trees. He stepped cautiously down from the overhanging hill of the riverbank, so that the thick reeds surrounding the bank would hide his horse. She was not pleased when she saw who the visitor was. It was Ramsay Snow. His eyes burned with dark, greedy lust, as they always did whenever he looked at her. Ryella turned her face away in disgust.
- 'I thought I'd find you here,' he said as he rode through the trunks of the brown trees.
Ryella would have preferred to be anywhere but here. Ramsay could certainly have been following her horse's hoofprints on the soggy ground.
- Ramsay! How did you find me?
- 'It wasn't hard,' said the man, as he strode towards the stony hollow where Ryella stood. - 'True, it's a long time since I was here, but I know this country like the back of my hand. I followed the signs your horse left. You're still as careless as when you were a child. You didn't clean up the broken branches. You know my dogs will find you before anyone else. No one noticed you missing from the castle this morning but me.
The man's scorching gaze burned in a way that reminded her of the Boltons she'd heard from her nanny, skinning people and burning half their hands for betraying their king.
- 'Come with me, Ryella,' Ramsay went on, and held out to her his hands, heavy with silver bracelets and scarred with battle-scarred, rough-looking scars. - Your mother will be worried if you are not home by the wedding feast!
- Let us wait, let us wait till Rickard's Karstarks arrive. They must come soon, it's the only ford on the river they can cross.
Ramsay was still in the saddle, throbbing with desire. He did not dismount. From there he looked down at her eagerly, haughtily. The eyes of men had been fixed on her beauty since she had become the choice of Lord Ramsay. Many, indeed, long before. Ryella knew instinctively that her sister was no match for her desirable charms. She was overcome with gloating, recalling the stunned, disapproving gossips when it was revealed that the vassal of the Stark royal house had given her his white wedding shawl. True, Ryella's mother was Frey, but that a true bastard of the Snow, the bastard son of Roose Bolton, should honour the king of an independent nation by asking his daughter to be his wife! Ryella has heard the malicious gossip, the gobbledegook of the household, that Robb wants it so, to tie the bastard of House Bolton to himself, counting on the war with the Lannisters that has become inevitable. But not for nothing is Ryella descended from the wolf clan, not for nothing is she a descendant of the great King Cregan, whose exploits and battles for freedom have been sung with glory by the Bolton singers. And she wanted to be like Cregan, a renowned warrior from the age of six. Ramsay now changed his voice to menace.
- I'm not going to wait all day for you, lady. It would be fitting to receive guests in your father's hall, as custom and law require!
Ryella closed her eyes and tried to smile.
- I would like to see Jon Snow first. I have been waiting for him for over eighteen years.
- 'You'll see your prince,' said Ramsay, a small smile showing on his smooth face. - Come with me. You know how much your mother worries about you.
Ryella walked very slowly to the edge of the little hill to stall for a little longer.
- How did it all go down? What was the last thing the ambassadors discussed?
Ramsay loosened the reins, flicked his tongue a few times at his horse, and the animal took three or four steps back. It was perfect harmony between horse and rider, as they would expect from a Bolton man: best not to make a sound, not to squeeze the horse with his legs, just think of him and he would know which way to go. When she reached him, Ramsay sprang from his saddle with a light movement. Ryella knew she could not escape, she must go whether she would or not. He might even be able to force her to obey with the long dagger-tip lurking in his deer-emblazoned belt. Or worse. Her fiancé wore his finest coat that day, trimmed with silver threads, with a green silk cloak slung over his shoulders. He even shaved off his thick, beautiful beard and combed his hair and adorned it with a silver band.
- Rodrik will take the throne, there can be no doubt. Your father will confirm the old alliance with Rickard, and the old order will be restored.
Ryella turned and looked into the distance.
- 'Now that King Baratheon is dead,' Ramsay continued, 'everyone but Robb Stark now accepts Joffrey's claim to the Iron Throne. And what can your father do?
Ryella turned back and looked deep into his eyes.
- My father will not go along with this! He thinks the sons of Winterfell should inherit the throne of King Baratheon instead of Joffrey.
- "Then, my dear, there will be war!" he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that the horses were saddled and ready to go. - But you have nothing to worry about. You are the daughter of the King of Winterfell and your father is a staunch ally of Lord Rickard. Who would dare harm you? Who would dare touch you with his sword to threaten the offspring of my blood that you carry beneath your heart?
- 'You think my father will win,' Ryella snapped, almost insulted, 'and Joffrey will lose. Why?
- In this war, there is no doubt who the gods will support.
Ryella thought of Jon Snow and the possibility of losing him if Robb and Joffrey went head-to-head. Jon Snow would never leave Robb, who already considers him his real brother. If war does indeed break out between the two rulers, he will stay by Robb's side, and their planned marriage may fade into the endless mist of the future, or vanish like smoke. What makes Ramsay so sure that Robb will be the victor? Isn't it whispered everywhere that Joffrey is the greatest Baratheon warlord?
- "Why?" she asked persistently. - 'Why should I believe you?
Ramsay shook his head.
- My love, my love! You are only my little betrothed. How could you know anything about war?
Ryella took a deep breath, drew herself up, then answered stiffly.
- Give me an explanation, or you'll have to drag my corpse out of here!
Ramsay chuckled to himself, but the smile quickly faded from his face to one of embarrassment as he looked into Ryella's determined eyes.
- Robb Stark is supported not only by the Lord of the Karstarks, but also by the Martells and House of Tully. And the Freys beyond the Neck Mountains, who live on the borders of the Riverlands. Joffrey can only recruit himself a few battalions from House of Tyrell, Florent, Tarly, Caswell and the unreliable wildlings who rebelled just last year. The great tribal alliance of the Greystarks, the sisterhood of the Starks, is also divided, there may be another war there between the new gods and the worshippers of the old gods. So the situation in Joffrey's hinterland is perpetually uncertain, and that's not even mentioning the intercepted reports of treacherous Lannister agents. Now do you understand?
Ryella was almost confused at hearing so many names of houses and offices. She didn't know the half of them, and Ramsay's confidence made her feel insecure.
- Then Joffrey would not be foolish enough to start a war!
- 'Perhaps not,' said Ramsay, when they came down.
He bent down and examined the hoof of his restless horse.
- Perhaps he would. 'I reckon that as Tywin's grandson, he'll stake his claim to the Iron Throne. 'My horse was limping on the way here,' he added, in passing, 'but I'm glad he didn't hurt his leg.
They mounted at last, and Ryella, who still could not see Rickard's troops rising in the direction of the thin strip of forest, resigned herself to her fate. Would Jon Snow come for her at all? She knew that there was rusted steel in this land, blood and helmet fragments still churning out of the earthmen's oak. What kind of people had ploughed this land, what kind of men had sown crops here, hunted in its forests, walked its rivers before her people, the Starks and the wildlings? She did not know, but she sensed in the whisper of the God of the Seven among the foliage that those who watered this land with their blood must have loved it as she did.