EDMURE
Not a dozen yards ahead of them, the road washed out in a sucking, boggy slough, and Edmure Tully manfully resisted the urge to say, "I told you so." The air was thick and dank and sullen, smelling of peat and moss and rot, and the horizon was breasted with the shadows of twisted trees. Boulders as misshapen as ogres were clad in veils of white lichen and slimy weed, and Edmure held his nervous horse firmly in check, refusing to evince anything but the utmost smug confidence before his companion. He'd taken them as far as he could, and nobody could say he'd not kept his word. After a few sniffs about this place, Ser Addam would abandon his delusions of grandeur, call off the search for Jeyne, and flee back to King's Landing, which had the advantage of looking like a veritable paradise next to this.
Beside him, however, Marbrand was studying the landscape with an intent, thoughtful look. During their weeks on the road together, Edmure had learned to mistrust that look; it meant Marbrand was about to do something that he wouldn't like. The man had already seen through all his previous attempts at ignorance or evasion. If he was entirely honest with himself, Edmure was surprised that Ser Addam hadn't yet strangled him in his sleep, but he knew far too well that desperation, combined with misguided acts of valorous idiocy, would drive even a member of the Most Devout to extremes. And unlikely bedfellows. Due to their at least incidental resemblance, largely thanks to the hair, he was posing as Ser Addam's kinsman: Ser Cristofer Marbrand of Nunn's Deep, a lie that stuck in Edmure's craw every time he had to utter it. Ser Addam said that as it happened, he did have a cousin named Cristofer from Nunn's Deep, but he had buggered off to the Free Cities years ago and nobody had spared a thought for him since. There had been at least half a dozen times when Edmure was on the brink of blurting out his true identity, but he decided against it. His usefulness to Ser Addam, perceived or actual, was the only thing keeping him from being whisked back off to Casterly Rock on the instant – and this time, his accommodations would be far dirtier, darker, and colder.
Besides, he had to at least look as if he'd tried to find Jeyne. Edmure was aware that his prospects of obtaining a full pardon and going back to Riverrun with Roslin someday were entirely tied to actually doing so, but he had. He'd led Ser Addam here, to the Neck, with Howland Reed's mysterious holdfast lurking somewhere in its depths. The man could decide for himself if he wanted to take the gamble.
"I've heard the stories of this place," Marbrand said at last, his voice breaking the unnatural quiet and making Edmure jump. "You did well to hide the girl here, my lord. Any man who ventures into the Neck, whom the crannogmen do not want there, can eat his supper at sunset and be attracting flies by sunrise."
Edmure gave a noncommittal grunt. He was grateful that he would not be of appreciable use in this situation; House Reed were bannermen to the Starks, not the Tullys, meaning that not even he would be guaranteed safe passage through the fens. Assuming that Jeyne and his uncle had, they would have been enjoying Howland's hospitality for quite some time now. He tried to calculate the dates in his head. If Jeyne had been with child when they fled, it would not have been born quite yet; it could not have been conceived but a few weeks before Roslin's at the most, and his wife was still pregnant. If it is a boy, we will name him Robb. Let the Lannisters take that how they would.
Still, Edmure supposed he did have call to be grateful to Ser Addam for letting him stretch his legs a bit. In fact, he had been surprised by how much respect the knight accorded him; he had agreed to let them share the watches at night, and had never raised his voice, let alone a hand. I could kill him one night and ride off. It had tempted Edmure, considerably. But the life of an outlaw on the run, with the full might of the Lannisters against him, was going to be nasty, brutish, and short.
"Well," Marbrand said. "It's plain we cannot venture into the Neck as is. So we must find a holdfast of suitable size to have a ravenry, and you will write to Lord Howland from there."
And then I forget. He's a bloody thinker. Edmure gritted his teeth. "What will I say? That he has to send out Queen Jeyne, or begin to wonder how the chorus of The Rains of Greywater Watch might go?"
Marbrand raised an eyebrow. "I don't doubt they have dozens of songs about rain already. As for the letter, surely you'll work out what to write. From here, the nearest town of any size would be Oldstones – or White Harbor, if we wanted to cross the Bite and approach the Neck from the north. I hear that Moat Cailin has been taken from the ironmen, so we may find some way in from there."
He is not going to give this up. All of Edmure's optimistic prognostications began to wither on the vine. "Moat Cailin is a reeking shithole regardless of whose banner is flying over it. And I still don't see how either of us can possibly – "
"I'd hoped to do this secretly," Marbrand conceded, "and I am not about to lead a great army into the Neck, but a few more swords at our back wouldn't go amiss. We're well north of your lands and mine, we can't call on any minor vassals or men-at-arms, but perhaps among your wife's kin – "
Edmure stared at him. "Are you mad? Go begging to the Freys for help rescuing the woman who drove them to the bloody Red Wedding in the first place? The Freys who slew my nephew and my sister, who playacted at hanging me every day for weeks, who cast down and shit on my house and my honor and my life? If that was a jest, it wasn't funny."
"I apologize." Ser Addam looked embarrassed. "You are correct, I was not thinking of it from your point of view – only from mine, as a Lannister bannerman. They are an utterly despicable lot, it would be better not to involve them. Pray forgive me. White Harbor might be wisest, in that case – there will be no dearth of northmen eager to swear their swords to win back the Young Wolf's queen. Combined with the letter you will send to Lord Howland, we will – "
"He might not answer," Edmure interrupted, knowing it feeble even as he did. "We charged him to hold Jeyne safe in the face of every threat or coercion. If he does not wish to give us safe escort to Greywater, we could have one sword or a thousand. They'd still end up rotting in the bogs or in the belly of a lizard-lion."
"And then you will have to return to Casterly Rock," Marbrand said mildly. "Alone."
Edmure flushed hot. Marbrand was so courteous and well-spoken that it was rare for him to make threats, even indirectly, but that had been the whip hand and no mistake. "And how do you think you'll get the northmen to believe that you only have her best interests at heart?" he snapped. "Even I won't tell that lie for you, not for all the gold you and your lion friends could possibly shit."
"Will you?" Marbrand's tone remained mild; he was not rising to the bait, which was even more infuriating than his pragmatism. "Whether it's gold or shit, you'll get what you merit. I should tell you that if Lady Jeyne is with the Young Wolf's child, I will take her back to Ashemark with me and allow it to be born there. If it is a boy, he will be trained as a knight; if a girl, a suitable marriage arranged."
"Noble sentiment. But if there's any hope of a Stark heir, the north will fight for it."
"Will they? A mere babe?" Marbrand gave a small smile. "I know not if you're attempting to goad me into killing your own blood, but I don't intend to. If King Joffrey and the Queen Regent had been more moderate in their policies, they might not have had to deal with quite so many insurrections."
Edmure could not deny that. "Joffrey was a vile little shit from the day he was born, and Cersei. . . the gods only know what they intended her to be, but it wasn't a woman. You're a halfway decent sort, Marbrand, if one steps back and squints hard. You can see there's no future with the Lannisters. Why not – "
Ser Addam was already shaking his head. "Fair try, my lord of Tully, but clumsy. King Tommen will grow up to be a good man, if by providence he lives to do so, and I intend to live to serve him."
"Tommen is no true Baratheon and no true king, the entire realm knows that by now. How can you continue to be such a dear friend of Ser Jaime, and close your eyes to what he's done? Or does it not bother you in the least that you're serving a bastard and usurper?"
This time, Marbrand hesitated before answering. Finally he said, "Tommen is the best of a bad lot. Not the king I would choose for winter, it is so, but even winter does not last forever. When spring comes, he will be a man."
With that, he turned his horse and began to canter back the way they'd come, along the meandering, rutted track that served for the kingsroad here. That left Edmure with little choice but to follow sullenly.
Understandably, conversation lagged for the next several days, as they rode out of the fenlands and down toward the Bite. Little fishing villages scattered the coast, and they should be able to hire a scow to take them to White Harbor – if the way was still passable. It was colder every night, snow cloaked the distant mountains of the Vale, and while soldiers often shared blankets for warmth, Edmure determinedly shivered himself to sleep every night, alone. He kept entertaining feverish fancies of what might await them in White Harbor. If he was given access to a ravenry, parchment, and quill. . . he could send letters to his bannermen, he could tell them. . . tell them what? But it was said that Lord Manderly had turned traitor and craven, had pandered and groveled to the Freys and gulped down their monstrous lies about the Red Wedding. If that was so, Marbrand would indeed have no difficulty rustling up a flock of willing co-conspirators. He warned me. He said that if I did not help, he would be forced to recruit from elsewhere. But I did, damn it!
Edmure was consumed in his unquiet thoughts for the rest of the journey. Finally, they reached some no-account little tavern, situated on the Bite and heavily clad in snow. But the innkeeper, on account of some recent incident he was stubbornly close-mouthed about, did not appear inclined to accommodate them or anyone. And at last – apparently to get them to go away – he divulged to them that there was a royal fleet anchored just off the Sisters.
"A royal fleet?" Ser Addam said, when they were unhappily back on the street. "What on earth. . .?"
"They've come after me, of course. You think my sudden disappearance from Casterly Rock would go totally unnoticed?"
Ser Addam shook his head. "They have enough to mind right the moment, and if they should take it into their heads to object, I will explain myself to any man's satisfaction. This fleet is here for some other purpose, and it would behoove us to find out what."
"Suit yourself. I'm not going near that many bloody Lannisters."
Ser Addam gave him that look which reminded him of the circumstances. Exasperated, Edmure yielded.
Looking out to sea, it was plain that the innkeeper was not mistaken. Even in the quickly falling twilight, the distant shapes of at least a dozen ships were visible, moored off the rocky cape of Longsister, and King Tommen's banner flapped on their masts. Torches flitted on the decks, and Edmure's stomach sank into his foot at the thought of imminently making acquaintance with the lot of them. But his hair had grown out, he was wearing a tabard in the Marbrand colors, and men would expect to see the unremarkable Ser Cristofer with his well-known and well-respected kinsman, not Edmure Tully on the lam. As long as you can restrain from doing anything stupid.
It was a chore to find a ferryman willing to make the voyage out at this hour, but Ser Addam had learned from his masters well; he rattled a fat purse of gold until he found a willing taker. Still, it was full dark by the time they set sail, and the wind bit like a whip. Edmure huddled in his cloak, watching the stars come out and occasionally cursing Marbrand under his breath. It wouldn't do to get out of practice.
The moon was rising when they finally reached the anchored Lannister fleet. Marbrand shouted up at the foremost of the ships, and the end result of a period of great confusion was that a longboat was lowered for them. They were taken aboard, the ferryman set back off for port with much grumbling and a few extra coins for his trouble, and Edmure, as they were helped over the rail, was suddenly fronted with his first real test.
"Marbrand?" said the captain, emerging from his cabin. "What in seven hells are you doing out here, ser? They send you to command the attack?"
"Attack?" Ser Addam looked equally blank. "I've been occupied in the westerlands, with my cousin." He made a cursory gesture at Edmure. "I've not been in court. Who are we attacking?"
The captain scratched his beard. "You ask me, it's pouring pitch on the blaze. After the executions, we should be preparing to defend the capital at all costs, whether it's from the river lords, the Freys, or this bloody rumored Aegon Targaryen. You're lucky you've been gone, ser. Madness and stupidity won the day. Though Manderly is a traitor, apparently, so gods know what we'll find out if we prick him and make him squeal a – "
Ser Addam held up both hands. "Slow down, for love of the Mother. What are you talking about? What executions? Why in creation would the river lords or the Freys be planning an attack on King's Landing? And Lord Manderly proved his loyalty by executing Stannis Baratheon's onion knight, his son was returned to him by the queen and the – "
The captain's face wore a look of dawning horror. "Seven hells," he said again. "You don't know any of it?"
Edmure experienced a rapid sinking sensation in his stomach. River lords and Freys. After his wedding, he could not imagine what sort of calamity it would have taken to knit the two together on the same side of any conflict. What could they have done, why would they have raised their gaze to King's Landing, why would they –
The captain looked furtherly confused. "Thought you would have. You were the one who sent the raven. About the Westerlings."
"Was I?" said Ser Addam, with a casualness that sounded distinctly strained.
"Aye. Horrible bit of business. I'd rather not dwell on it."
"Horrible? Why?"
"Ser, I hate to tell you, but it's already done. And that is. . . Lord Gawen and his family are dead. Executed on the plaza of Baelor just about a sevennight ago. And Lord Tully's wife too, the Frey. Punished for their collusion in letting Jeyne Westerling escape from – "
A roaring filled Edmure's ears. The captain was saying that the king had personally ordered it, and Ser Addam retorted that no, this could only have come from the queen, and the captain protested that Cersei had been deposed of power and authority, was shut up in Maegor's awaiting her trial – but none of it made any sense to him. He was on his knees, but he couldn't remember falling. All he could hear was the wrenching, shattering roar that was bursting up his throat and rattling against his teeth.
There was talk in concerned voices. Someone enquired of Ser Addam if his kinsman was well, and Ser Addam asked if they could kindly appropriate the captain's cabin for a moment, thank you. Then hands were pulling Edmure to his feet, he was blundering ahead, a door shut behind them, and he exploded.
"How – dare – you!" Words were totally insufficient for the inferno inside him. "Go get me – drag me off – diversion, was it, so you Lannister cunts could get the others – to think I almost believed you when you said you wouldn't harm them – fuck you! Fuck! You!"
Ser Addam, from what Edmure could see through the haze of red, was as white as a sheet. "My lord, I swear, I swear that I never meant for that to happen, never. It's lunacy, sheer screaming lunacy. The more I think of it, the more I think that not even Cersei could have given such an order – "
"Could she not?" Edmure snarled. "When her own beloved lord father thought up my wedding?" It always came back to that. Always and forever. The mistakes he'd made and kept on making, to culminate in the most monstrous one of all. And now it did not even matter. Roslin was dead too. And there is officially nothing in this world that can stop me from killing them all tonight.
Edmure threw himself at Ser Addam.
The knight was still reaching out, trying to comfort him, and so Edmure was able to take him squarely off balance. However, Ser Addam was not one of the Lannisters' most celebrated battle commanders for nothing, and it took him only a bare instant to react; his body was too well-trained, even if his mind might sympathize. Grappling, struggling, they hit the captain's table and went down with an almighty crash. Edmure began to punch every part of Marbrand he could reach, as Ser Addam caught half the blows with one arm and tried to duck, with varying results, the others. But he wasn't hitting Edmure back, save for defensively. He must consider himself too bloody noble to literally kick a man when he was down.
Dimly, Edmure could hear running footsteps, shouting at the door. If they were caught rowing like this, it would take a great deal of fast talking on Ser Addam's part to keep the disguise intact, and that wrought a split second of indecision in him. For all that he was bitterly furious at Marbrand for tricking him like this, for hearing what had happened as a direct result of his meddling in the Westerling affair, the fact remained that the knight was his only protection. Any and every Lannister man-at-arms, on finding out his true identity, would see him only as an escaped traitor, deserving of the same fate that had befallen his wife and the Westerlings. If so, Ser Addam could prate of noble purposes and the preservation of the realm until his face turned blue, for all the good it would do him.
That moment of indecision was enough. Ser Addam rose up underneath him, flipped them over, and pinned Edmure flat on the floor, just as the cabin door opened. "What in damnation is going on?" the captain complained. "We had enough of that sort of thing in King's Landing, I don't need it on my ship."
"You're right." Blood was trickling down Ser Addam's chin from where one of Edmure's punches had split his lip, and a sheaf of copper hair was hanging in his face, but aside from that and being rather short of breath, he had suffered no lasting damage. It made Edmure feel worse than ever; even his rage was futile. He wanted to rend Marbrand from limb to limb, cave his face in, chop off his sword hand like his beloved Jaime, but all he had ended up with this sad pathetic little spectacle.
"You're right," Marbrand said again as he climbed to his feet – keeping a wary eye on Edmure, apparently to see if he would do the same and attempt to continue where they had left off. "My cousin was enraged to hear of the unlawful executions of the Westerlings. As a boy, he was good friends with Ser Raynald, and the Red Wedding haunts him still."
Even beside himself as he was, Edmure had to admire the skill of Ser Addam's cover; he had lied by telling the truth. And Ser Cristofer Marbrand might well have been acquainted with the eldest Westerling son – there was certainly no one to say that he was not. That would also explain his grief-stricken reaction. Pray the gods the Lannisters hadn't noticed that he had not gone berserk until Roslin's death was mentioned.
Her and my child both. He would never know if he had lost a son or a daughter, what they would have grown up to be and to do, the joys and the heartaches they would have brought to him. In his head he saw a vision of three figures, walking down a long white beach. He could tell that one was him, and the other Roslin, but the third was unknown to him. It had the Tully hair, but it was neither male nor female in its likeness. As he watched, the one that was him stood still, but Roslin and the other kept walking, farther and farther down the sand into the light. Just before she stepped into it, she turned, but he could not hear what she called to him; the shade that was his unlived child never looked back. And he knew beyond all doubt that they were truly gone.
Edmure lay flat on the floor as the image faded. His surge of rage-fueled violence had deserted him; he felt utterly dead himself. It occurred to him to wonder, in a vague incurious sort of way, what on earth Ser Addam was going to do now. Jeyne was, as it stood, the last living heir of the Westerlings of the Crag – otherwise, their old and noble House had been exterminated as thoroughly as the Reynes of Castamere. In that regard she had additional value, but if Howland Reed got wind of this, he'd have to be beyond an idiot to entrust her to the custody of Ser Addam Marbrand, bannerman to Casterly Rock and bosom companion of the Kingslayer. Besides, Ser Addam might not be able to keep her safe regardless of whether his intentions were good, and most of his leverage over Edmure had vanished – he could hardly grant him back a family life when the family had been wiped out. He could still theoretically secure a pardon and a return to Riverrun, but at the moment, Edmure could care less.
"Mind you," Marbrand was saying, somewhere above him, "I stand by my belief that it was dangerous lunacy. How dare the crown arbitrarily seize and murder a vassal of the standing of Lord Gawen – and his entire family, who were pardoned? And the Freys. . . gods be good, have we not learned what they do when spurned? The Late Lord Walder will just as blithely change sides again if we wrong him – "
"The Late Lord Edwyn, it would be now," the captain interrupted wryly. "It's said that the old man, who was already stricken after his apoplexy, perished directly on hearing the news."
Still on the floor, Edmure let out a gurgling, agonized bray of laughter. It would be the most unholy jest if that rotten old bastard – may he burn in hellfire for all eternity – had expired on receiving word of the treacherous murder of his child, but Edmure took it well salted. Besides, to make it so would mean that he had to rejoice in Roslin's death, and while the world was certainly perverted enough to think up something like this, he had to cling to whatever solace he could.
"The point is," the captain continued, diplomatically overlooking this interjection, "is that Lord Walder's dead. Edwyn rules the Twins now."
"For a fortnight," Ser Addam said, with uncharacteristic cynicism. "If that."
"Be that as it may. Aye, this business with the Westerlings was madness, but – "
"But what?" Marbrand slammed a fist onto the table, which had only just been restored to its proper place after he and Edmure had knocked it over in their brawl. "Why was the order carried out without question? The king is nine, the queen is mad, the Hand is a Tyrell. Surely somewhere along the line it must have occurred to the men tasked with it that it was folly. Did no one try to stop it?"
"M'lord, you know that soldiers are trained to obey. Forgive me, but the queen and Lord Tywin in particular. . . they always let you know that the consequences would be even worse from them, if you failed."
"I know." Marbrand suddenly sounded very old. "Cersei has never been known for mercy, it is true. When I first came to Casterly Rock to serve as a page, she hated me so openly that I used to feed my supper to the dogs for fear she'd poisoned it, and sneak to the kitchens later. She begrudged every moment I spent with Jaime, until he soothed her jealousy somehow. I know the woman she was, and the queen she became. But this is so utterly flagrant, so contrary to even the barest scrap of political sense or personal decency, that I cannot help but suspect another hand at work in it. Some ulterior motive. I can't say what. Seven hells, did no one try to stop it?"
"One did." The captain had a strange expression on his face.
"Who?"
"Jaime."
Marbrand looked flattened. "What? What? He's alive? He's in King's Landing? The last I heard, he'd gone truant in the riverlands."
"Apparently not. Or he's been found. Can't say why he was there, or what possessed him, but he charged the scaffold single-handed, killed Boros Blount and Meryn Trant and Osmund Kettleblack. Likely would have killed more, but it seems he's taken some horrendous wound in his adventures, and it felled him before he could. He's arrested and under guard in the Red Keep. Addam. . ." The captain hesitated. "Addam, he's a dead man."
"Jaime has always wanted to be a hero," Marbrand murmured. "And he deserves a commendation for killing Blount and Trant, just as he deserved a commendation for killing Aerys."
The captain nodded somberly. Neither of them said anything until Marbrand finally spoke again. "Where are we bound – White Harbor? Why?"
"To teach the Manderlys a lesson, as I said. Lord Roose Bolton sent word that they've turned traitor. We were dispatched from King's Landing the same night as the executions."
"Murders. Call them what they are. And. . . truly? After the result of the last order that was blindly obeyed, you're about to do it again?"
"I don't like it, no. But Tommen is the king, and the heir of House Lannister. You and me, Addam, we're westermen. We have to do what he says."
"Doubtless Lord Gawen thought the same."
Something in Ser Addam's voice made Edmure start. He saw the captain and the knight staring at each other, and the realization crossing the captain's face. "Seven Above. You'd have us turn traitor?"
"It would only be traitorous if these were Tommen's orders. They're not. I'm not entirely sure that they're Cersei's, either. If we attack and burn White Harbor in the wake of the murders, that would forever alienate any lone northerner who's not already revolted by the vile lords we forced on them. Let's do some simple arithmetic. With the south, the west, and the north in arms against us, and the east in arms for the Targaryen pretender, where does that leave us?"
The captain paused only briefly. "Dead."
"Exactly. Now, listen to me. When we arrive in White Harbor, Ser Wylis will offer parley – he is an honorable man, and a timid one. Keep quiet and listen, but afterwards, when you return to the ships, you must make the other captains understand. If we want any of the Seven Kingdoms reconciled to Tommen's rule ever again – I think it rather more likely that the Long Summer will come first, but that cannot stop us trying – we must show ourselves to be something other than fiends, fools, children, and madmen. I'll speak for you, if need be, until we convince them. Then we will raise our banners and take the fleet to battle. Against the Boltons."
"You're. . . sure?" The captain looked tempted, but still hesitant. "The Boltons are the lawful new Wardens of the North. . . the son, he married the Stark girl. . ."
"Ramsay Bolton is an abomination and the Stark girl is a fraud. Believe me, I've heard it from very reliable sources. And what do you think would give the northerners more cause to love us? Ridding them of beasts who torture women and make them into cloaks, or burning White Harbor and killing those women ourselves? Finding the Young Wolf's widow and returning her honorably to them, or seeing to it that she joins her family in death?"
The captain's eyes went wide. "You're a wise man, Addam," he said at last. "Aye, I'll do it. My fellows will listen, I know it. Nobody liked that business or this one. I've got a son I haven't seen in three years. I want this war to be over."
"Good man." Ser Addam took him by the hand, and the two men clapped each other on the back. "You and everyone."
Edmure remained on the floor, and watched them leave. He lay gazing at the ceiling, feeling calm and empty and completely drained, destroyed and remade and undone all in the span of an hour. And outside the door, orders were shouted, anchors were weighed, and the fleet set sail for White Harbor.