Chapter 36 — "Robb Stark"
Grey Wind was on the bed again.
Robb smiles seeing it . Although His mother's voice was very clear in his head on the subject — the direwolf sleeps in the yard, Robb, not in your chambers, not on your furniture — and he had igorned her and that angered her even more.
He scratched behind the wolf's ears.
His mother didn't like Grey Wind. Didn't like direwolves in general. Didn't like a lot of things that Robb liked which had been the running theme of their relationship for as long as he could remember.
Especially after Alaric.
Robb had never said it directly to her face. Had never accused her. But he knew. Had known since he was old enough to understand what had actually happened four years ago and why Alaric had been sent away. His mother's hand in it wasn't something she had admitted and it wasn't something Robb had confronted her about.
What could he do.
Rebel a bit.
Which he had. With Jon's help, he had rebel , did everything mother didn't like, even some things father didn't like, but doing it with Jon and pissing off mother considerably more satisfying.
He smiled thinking about it.
His time for adventure and pranks was shrinking though.
He was heir in training now. Properly. Council meetings, correspondence, supply requisitions that didn't add up no matter how many times he checked the figures. The daily grind of lordship that looked so manageable from the outside and was so aggressively tedious from the inside.
As expected it was boring and hard.
So he had made the decision.
The one that had made his mother angrier than anything else he had ever done. More than the pranks. More than every small defiance accumulated over years of trying to breathe inside Winterfell's walls.
Making Jon his second.
His rightful place. Always had been. His mother and half of Winterfell had opinions about that and Robb had listened to every one of those opinions with great patience and done exactly what he intended to do from the start.
Six weeks of arguments. Too many to count. Robb had stood his ground every time — not loudly, not aggressively, just immovably. His father had been hesitant. Not opposed, never unfair to Jon, but hesitant, very hesitant but he knew I was stubborn especially after Big Brother Alacric was gone.
Convincing Jon had been the harder part. Which Robb had not anticipated.
Jon had wanted to go south. To Alaric.
The letters had been building something in Jon for two years — Lord Royce's reports, the Blackfish's correspondence, Jon Arryn's letters before he died. Merchants and travelers passing through Winterfell mentioning the name in passing.
Wolf of the Passes as he was called by someone.
Robb had wanted to go too if he was honest. Still did. The idea of riding south to wherever Alaric was and joining whatever he was building was considerably more appealing than the supply requisition on his desk.
But he was heir. Duty as they say.
Jon had pushed hard with their father. Too hard. Had made quite the infamous reputation for himself in Winterfell through the stubbornness of it — bringing it up repeatedly, refusing to let it go in the specific quiet way Jon refused to let things go. His mother had been almost pleased, thinking perhaps that Jon causing friction might result in him being sent somewhere inconvenient.
His father had shut it down completely.
Firmly. Clearly. Finally.
Jon had accepted it.
Then started talking about the Night's Watch like their Uncle Benjen.
What a fool, Robb thought with genuine affection. What an absolute fool my brother is.
He had intervened before that went any further.
I'm asking you Jon. As my brother. Stay. Work with me. Won't you do that for me as a brother. Don't be like that don't do what Big Brother Alacric did to us .
Jon had been quiet for a long time after that but eventually agreed.
Best decision Robb had ever made.
He put all the boring paperwork on Jon immediately and lived a considerably more satisfied life since.
He shook the thoughts loose and dragged himself to the yard.
The training ground sounds came through before he reached it — the specific sounds of Jon teaching, which were different from anyone else teaching because Jon was serious about it in the way he was serious about most things worth being serious about.
He came around the corner.
Bran and Arya were both on their backsides in the dirt.
Jon stood over them with a practice sword and the patient expression of a man waiting for a lesson to arrive at its destination.
"Put some force into it," Jon said. "Show some intent with your sword. If you swing like you're afraid of hitting something you'll never hit anything."
As he said this he made both of them sit on their arses again for good measure.
Bran scrambled up immediately.
Arya scrambled up faster with considerably more opinion about the situation.
"Jon," Robb called from the yard's edge. "Enough fun for today. Let's go. We have a lot of work. His Grace is coming and we need to prepare and greet the royal party properly. Handle the office and papers today."
Jon looked at Bran and Arya. At Robb. Back at Bran and Arya.
He sighed.
"What kind of brother drags his brother away from something useful to do a bunch of paperwork and bores him to death," Jon said.
"A damn good one," Robb said. "Now off to work. Don't be a princess, Lady Snow."
Jon gave him the look. The specific Jon Snow look that said the comment didn't deserve a response and was receiving none.
He handed the practice swords to Bran and Arya.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Same time. Arya — footwork."
Arya was already swinging at a post.
The papers were done by midday.
Jon had solved the supply requisition in twenty minutes that Robb had spent an hour on.
They went together to receive the royal party.
The yard assembled. The household. The guards. His mother beside his father — composed, correct, lord's wife in every line of her. Sansa tall and proper. Arya in the dress she clearly hated. Bran smiling. Rickon watching the horses.
Robb took his position at his father's right.
Jon stood slightly apart in the way Jon always stood slightly apart from things.
The gates opened.
The royal party came through — the noise of it, the horses, the wagons, the size of a king traveling with everything kings required. Robert dismounting. His father going to one knee.
Robb's eyes moved through the column the way eyes moved when looking for nothing specific.
They stopped.
His brain did the specific thing brains did when encountering something they hadn't prepared for — the delay, the processing, the moment of genuine uncertainty before recognition crashed through.
It crashed through.
His mouth opened.
He shut it.
Ceremony. The king was present. He was the heir and he knew what that meant and this was not the moment for what he wanted to do which was cross twenty feet of yard at speed and be extremely loud about it.
He held the line.
But the grin came anyway.
All of it. Completely. Twenty feet of yard and four years of absence and Robb Stark's grin was exactly what it had always been since he was eleven years old.
Of course, he thought. Of course you'd come back with the bloody king. Of course that's how you'd do it. Couldn't send a letter. Couldn't give us any warning.
He looked at Jon.
Jon had already found him.
Jon was completely still in the specific way he went still when something arrived that he had been waiting for without letting himself admit he was waiting for it. Not shock exactly. Something quieter and deeper than shock.
Robb watched Jon's face do the thing Jon's face almost never did in public.
Gone in a second. Controlled. Locked back where Jon kept things.
But it had been there.
Robb looked back at his big brother standing in the royal column.
At the axe.
At the man the thirteen year old boy had become.
He shook his head once — the private acknowledgment of someone who had been hearing stories for four years and was now looking at the source of the stories and finding the source considerably more real than the stories had been.
Finally, he thought. You absolute fool. Finally.
He faced forward.
Held the line.
The ceremony could finish.
What came after could take its time.
He had waited four years.
A few more minutes wouldn't kill him.
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