The air in Hornwood's great hall smelled of smoke, grease, and men grown too used to one another's deceit. The hearthfire hissed and spat like a restless cat, the only sound between the measured voices of lords too polite to call each other liars to their faces.
Lady Barbrey Dustin sat among them, wrapped in sable and silence, watching the firelight crawl along the walls like something half-alive.
Her half-brother Roger was beside her, restless as ever, his knee bouncing beneath the table. Their father, Lord Rodrik Ryswell, already held court with the rest, Bolton, Karstark, Hornwood, men who called themselves allies when the wine was poured and enemies the moment it ran dry.
Roose Bolton sat far too still, his pale eyes unreadable in the gloom. The man never smiled, and that, Barbrey thought, perhaps was his finest quality.
Halys Hornwood, their host, was speaking, voice slick with self-importance.
"My lords," said Halys, lifting his cup, "if we dam the White Knife, we can cripple the Manderlys and make profit out of their ruin. Tolls on their ships, fees from their merchants. White Harbor would bleed coin into our hands before the first snow."
Barbrey's mouth curved in a twitch of contempt. Ingrate bastard, she thought. Fattened on Manderly cheese, now gnawing at the hand that fed him. He'd spent years warming himself at Wyman's table, married his cousin besides, and now dreamed of biting the very breast that nursed him.
Lord Rickard Karstark thumped his cup against the table. "I am behind you, Lord Halys. And now that we are to be kin through your son Daryn and my daughter Alys, our friendship is sealed in blood."
Barbrey inclined her head with cool grace. "My congratulations, my lords. A wonderful development."
Across the table, Roose Bolton's voice came, soft and low, "Yes," he said, "marriage binds old blood together."
She lifted her cup. "To old blood," she said. "May it never grow so thin it must beg the south for salt."
They drank. Even Roose smiled at that.
"Aye," Rickard barked, raising his cup again, his voice too loud for the hall. Then his face twisted. "To think that fat bastard Wyman Manderly dared ask her hand for his seven-damned grandson. He thought I'd give my only daughter to that greenlander pup of his. I'd rather she died a virgin maid."
"Arthur," said Halys, with a sneer that showed his yellow teeth. "A boy who thinks himself better than the rest of us. Did you know he's been giving his house's lands away to peasants from the south?"
Roger gave a low chuckle. "North too, my lord. He's taken in smallfolk from our own lands."
Rodrik Ryswell nodded gravely. "Aye, many from our borders went to him."
Barbrey set down her cup. "They weren't doing anything in yours," she said sharply. "Spare sons and castaways. No great loss."
The lords laughed, though the sound was uneasy. She let them. They always laughed when she cut them, thinking the wound small because she'd smiled after.
In truth, she knew the boy Arthur had made something of them, her castaways, her brother's wastes, men no lord had wanted. He'd gathered them, shaped them into a people, a dream perhaps. Foolish, that kind of dream. The North had no room for dreamers, she knew it well, as did Brandon.
"Still," Roose murmured, turning his pale gaze upon her, "it is no small matter to change the way of the world. Blind ambitions can make a man dangerous."
"So can hunger," Barbrey said. "Let him have more mouths to feed."
Her father coughed, eager to reclaim the talk. "This is not about some boy's fancies. The matter is Barrowton. The king rides south, Eddard Stark at his heel. The time is now to settle your rule, daughter. You have the right, and our backing."
"Your backing," Barbrey echoed softly. "How comforting."
Rodrik frowned. "You mock even your own blood?"
"I have precious little of it left to mock," she said, meeting his eyes. "But yes, father, let us speak of my rule. I have kept Barrowton safe, fed, and loyal, without Ryswell men or Bolton coin. I have need of neither."
Roose replied. "No one questions your strength, my lady. But strength is loneliest when it stands alone."
Barbrey smiled thinly. "Then it suits me well."
For a heartbeat, only the fire spoke. The logs split with a dry crack, scattering embers like a spray of dying stars.
Barbrey turned her gaze to them, remembering another fire long ago, in the halls of her father, Brandon's laugh echoing through the smoke. A sound like life itself. For a moment, she felt it all again, his warmth, the ache from his manhood. A bloody sword is a beautiful thing. Then it passed, and the hall was only cold stone and men scheming for her lands.
Rodrik Ryswell leaned forward, his hands clasped tight upon the table, knuckles pale as old bone.
"You must marry, Barbrey," he said, his voice the scrape of iron on stone. "You've no heir, and without one, how do you mean to hold Barrowton? You cannot keep it forever by a dead man's name."
Roose Bolton's quiet voice slid in, "Aye, my lady, your father speaks true. It would be the prudent course. I myself must wed again, now that my son, your dear nephew, Domeric, has been taken from me. Such is the way of things. We must secure the future, whether we wish to or not."
Secure the future. The phrase tasted like ash. They would have her breed heirs for the sake of their maps and ledgers. Sons to send to the battlefields, daughters to sell like her fathers' mares. For what? So that she might forget that the Starks and the Manderlys once took everything she had and left her nothing but a tomb to rule.
No. Let Barrowton be her grave, and theirs with it.
Barbrey set her cup down with a soft click, sharp as the point of a dagger.
"Noble lords such as you should not need such simple things explained," she said, her tone honeyed and hard. "I hold Barrowton by grace of Lord Eddard Stark, who granted it to me under widow's law. He also, in his infinite mercy, bade me to serve as regent for young Arthur until he came of age. If I marry, that right dies."
Roger broke in, his voice too eager by half. "But your mother was a Dustin herself, sister. You've claim to Barrowton by blood. It is yours, even should you wed again."
Rodrik nodded, warming to the thought. "Aye. Roger speaks true. You have as much a claim as that boy Arthur Manderly does, and likely more. The blood of Barrowton ran longer in your veins than it ever did in his."
Barbrey laughed softly, though there was no mirth in it. "Blood," she said. "Always blood. You men think it binds everything together. But blood spills easier than wine, and tastes the same when it's on the ground."
Barbrey continued, her words came out bitter, "Fools, both of you. You think my hold upon Barrowton so strong I could claim it outright? There are men in my lands who dream of my death each night and wake disappointed each dawn. My late husband's great-uncle, Walton Dustin, among them."
Halys Hornwood raised a brow, half in jest, half in disbelief. "Old Walton? He still lives?"
Rodrik Ryswell spat into the rushes. "Aye, the old bastard refuses to die. Three wars he's fought, Ninepenny Kings, the Rebellion, the Greyjoys, and countless battles between them. Lost a hand in the Trident, near lost his head in the Pyke, yet still the stubborn bastard lives. I've seen trees rot faster."
Barbrey's lips twisted. "He'll outlast us all, no doubt. The Stranger himself must be wary of his company."
Rickard Karstark leaned forward, his thick hands resting upon the table. "Are there no other kin of your late husband who might side with you, my lady?"
"There is Mervin Dustin," Barbrey said, her voice sharp as a knife's edge. "A cousin, though he'd call himself more. A swine, cowardly and fat with his own offspring. He writes me letters full of honeyed words and speaks of marriage, hoping to steal my heart and my name both."
"Another suitor," Roger murmured.
"My lady, should it come to swords, you must know we shall all stand beside you. Yet a marriage might spare the need for such ugliness. Barrowton would be secure, as would you," added Roose Bolton softly.
"Secure?" Barbrey looked at him across the flickering firelight. "My lords," she said, "you may plot and scheme to your hearts' content. But Barrowton is mine, and it will burn before I see it traded for a wedding bed."
Roose only smiled, thin and bloodless. "As you will. But consider this, the Manderly boy grows, and quickly. How long before he asks for what he believes is his?"
Halys Hornwood seized upon that. "Aye," he said eagerly, "the boy's always climbing. I've heard he's building a harbor for the Tallharts at Torrhen's Square. A harbor! Gods, next he'll be placing ships of his own there. He thinks to make those fat Manderlys the masters of every tide of the north."
Rickard Karstark's mouth curled in disgust. "These heathens have never learned what it means to be of the North. They speak of trade and industry, while their sons kneel to the south. I say they've no respect for our ways, nor our gods. Halys, you must finish taking the holdfast soon and start on your dam. Cut their river and you cut their throats."
Halys nodded, the firelight glinting off his narrow eyes. "Aye, it shall be done. The White Knife has fattened them long enough. Let them pay for every drop that flows north."
The hall murmured with agreement, men dreaming of gold, of power, of the Manderlys' ruin.
Barbrey sipped her wine and watched them, her gaze cool and distant. Fools, every one of them. They thought themselves wolves, but she knew the scent of carrion. None of them plotted for her sake, only for what she delivered. They would gnaw at the Manderlys and Stark both until the North was hollowed out, and she would let them, for a time. Let them fight over lands and build dams over rivers, she thought. The Manderlys' and the Starks' ruin would not come by their hands, but by hers.
Barbrey's patience had worn thin, "My lords," she said, her voice smooth and cool, "you are all forgetting one small matter. You cannot move a finger in the North without Winterfell's leave. Taking a Cerwyn holdfast would make Hornwood their enemy, and damming the White Knife without the lord's approval would be worse still. The Starks are not blind, nor deaf, no matter how far south their lord has gone."
Roger Ryswell nodded beside her. "Aye, the harbor at the Square is being raised by Lord Stark's own leave. We'd need his permission for any such venture."
Halys Hornwood leaned forward, his jowls quivering slightly. "We can get it," he said with too much eagerness. "Now Robb Stark sits at Winterfell. Our young lord's no more than a boy; he'll be easily influenced."
Barbrey gave him a long, disdainful look. "Are you a fool, my lord, or only pretending to be one?" The words fell like frost from her tongue. "The Manderly boy grew up beside the Starks. Robb won't move against him."
A few of the lords shifted uneasily. Halys flushed, his mouth working soundlessly.
Roger, ever the peacemaker, added, "His mother might. Lady Catelyn's no Manderly friend, from what I hear."
At that name, something hot and poisonous curled in Barbrey's chest. Catelyn Tully. The red-haired southern bitch who had stolen her Brandon's hand, her place, her life. She kept her face still, but her nails bit crescents into her palm beneath the table.
Rickard Karstark's harsh laughter cut through the hall. "A green boy still suckling at his mother's teat is not the Stark we need leave from. You'll not find courage in a child or sense in a southron wife."
Roose Bolton's soft voice slithered through the noise. "Perhaps not," he said mildly, "A green boy he may be, still, he is the boy who will be our future lord." The fire crackled. None dared challenge him. Roose's tone was quiet, but there was always a knife hidden beneath it.
Rodrik Ryswell rose slowly, his heavy cloak sweeping behind him.
"My lords. We'll not settle all the North in one night." His eyes flicked toward Barbrey. "We must find suitors worthy of both Lord Bolton and my daughter. Lord Halys, you will see to it that Cerwyn is enticed to make the first move. Give him fear, pride, whatever bait you must. Once he draws blood, we shall have our cause."
He paused. "As for the rest, my daughter and I will see to convincing Lady Catelyn. The southron lady has more say in Winterfell these days than, we, her husband's men care to admit."
Barbrey inclined her head, her smile thin and false. "As you command, Father."
That ended it. One by one, the lords took their leave, Karstark with his bluster, Bolton with his whispers, Hornwood waddling behind like a stuffed goose, eager to seem important. Their boots echoed down the stone hall until only the fire remained, guttering low.
Barbrey stood very still, feeling the cold seep into her bones. Gods be good, it was over. She thanked them for that much at least.
Her father turned toward her, opening his mouth to speak, but she cut him a glance sharp enough to flay flesh.
"Not tonight," Barbrey said.
He frowned. "This matter of—"
"Not tonight," she repeated, and swept past him without another word.
The air outside the hall bit her cheeks raw. The moon was thin, pale as milk, and the trees whispered secrets in the dark. Barbrey drew her cloak tighter, breathing in the scent of cold pine and old woodsmoke.
Let her father chase after Catelyn Tully if he wished, let him bow and flatter that southron wretch who sat in her seat, slept in her bed. He thought to find her a husband like some sow at market, but she would make her own choice. As she always had. Even if Barbrey had to marry, she would never marry for peace, nor for safety.
No, she would only wed again if it brought her Winterfell.
For now, Barbrey was building a grave for Manderlys and Starks alike. She would make them rue their pride. Their bonds and loyalty, she would turn bitter. She would watch them choke on the ashes of their dreams as she once did. And then, only then, vengeance would be hers.