ASOIAF: King of Winter

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Chapter 4

Catelyn Stark née Tully

"You will not go in there!" She demanded her son. "If Lord Frey were to hold you hostage…" She keeps the sentence unfinished, the implications obvious.

Yet all she received was a dispassionate gaze, even now she can barely catch the slight traces of warm indulgence in her son's eyes, and as time went on he started getting harder and harder to read. Either that or he simply lost all emotion, but Catelyn was unwilling to entertain such thoughts.

"We spoke of this, mother." Robb responds to her as though chiding a child. "I appreciate your worry, yet you are once again letting your emotions cloud your judgement."

Catelyn huffs and crosses her arms. "I am perfectly calm." She says. "The last thing we need is for you to be taken hostage, in that scenario this army will have no choice but to negotiate, or worse, try to storm the castle! It is simply not the logical position."

Robb shows the slightest frown. "No, I need to be there, or else Walder will offer harsher demands, ones that I cannot grant to him."

"What demands?" Catelyn asks. "What would be more important than rescuing your sisters?"

"I cannot offer betrothals; neither my hands nor any of my siblings is an acceptable trade." He says. "After this war, it is quite likely that we'd come to regret this decision, so I have to at least secure that."

Catelyn gasps. "Then why negotiate in the first place?!" She complains. "There is no way Lord Walder will grant you passage with those conditions."

"Do not worry, mother." Robb's emotionless voice seemed strangely comforting. "I can convince him."

Before she could complain further, Lord Roose enters the premises.

"My Lord, the Freys are ready to open the gate."

"Good, let us head out."

*-*-*

After a rather tense affair, where the gatekeepers barely let them enter with their weapons at Robb's insistence (his cold gaze terrified the poor men), the trio finally found themselves face to face with the Late Lord Frey.

Yet they offered neither bread nor salt, and so they hadn't guest right to protect them.

Robb strangely kept silent, slowly walking around the spacious room, staring at each nook and cranny like it was an artistic masterpiece.

Lord Walder does his creepy laugh atop his perch, staring down at them like a king on his throne. "The young Stark graces our halls, hiding behind his mother and his vassals." He mocks.

Catelyn bristles, yet Roose wisely speaks before she could say anything out of turn.

"We are here to negotiate, Lord Frey." Roose Bolton always unnerved Catelyn, but she found comfort in the way he made Walder feel the same.

Yet Walder simply ignores him, a tactic to unnerve the lord as he did him, perhaps? And then turns to address Cat, even while Robb is staring through the window.

Catelyn makes an assessment of their room; they were surrounded by men in Frey livery, his sons, presumably. This made her feel somewhat nervous.

"Your father didn't come to my last wedding." He says.

Catelyn's smile is crooked. "He is quite ill my lord."

"Didn't come to the last one either, or the one before that." He lets out a chuckle. "Your family's always pissed on me."

"My Lord I-"

"Don't deny it, you know it's true." He interrupts. "Refined Lord Tully would never marry his children to mine."

"I'm sure there reasons-"

"I don't need reasons; I need to get rid of sons and daughters, you see how they pile up?!" He mentions to the many gathered around them. "So I ask you again, why are you here?"

"And as I said, Lord Frey." Bolton interjects. "We are here to ask you to open your gates, and allow our army to cross the trident."

Catelyn noticed that the Leech Lord acted much more confrontationally; maybe it was because she seemed overly polite? It didn't matter.

"Ha!" He laughs. "And why would I do that?"

"The twenty thousand men camping next to your castle will do, I think." Bolton doesn't let any emotion but derision show in his features.

"They'll be twenty thousand corpses when Tywin Lannister gets here." Walder answers.

"And how long do you predict THAT will take?" Roose is unrelenting. "What with his troops rampaging through the riverlands in impunity? His men are busier than you may think, Lord Frey. And even if he arrives, our men would simply retreat back into the north, and the moment a path is free, they'll come back, in larger numbers even."

"The Twins are formidable castles still. And what does stop me from simply seizing both of you, your silent boy included, what would your mighty army do then? Huh?"

Roose simply had no reply for that, and so Catelyn prepared herself to interject in his behalf.

"You swore an oath to my father." She says.

"And I swore another in Kingslanding." Walder deadpans. "You people simply seem like rebels to be, Hm?"

They were stumped, the only choice they had was ask for his demands and fulfill them. She sighs; this will probably be the most expensive toll in history.

"Is this it?" Her boy's voice seemed to shock the spectators, as he stared at the halls of the keep.

"What are you babbling about, boy?!"

"Is this the same place where Duncan the Tall and Aegon the Fifth visited during their adventures?" He turns to the aging Lord, and in typical fashion the latter freezes at his stare and tone. "I'd wager you were but a small boy at the time. I could almost imagine it, the toddler heir of the Twins swaggering through the castle, meeting what one might call the greatest knight and king in history. What a sight it must have been."

Walder simply stares at Robb, surprised, so her son simply continues.

"How long ago was it? Close to a hundred years, wasn't it? That is truly a long time." Her son's playful sentences matched with his emotionless voice created a strange dichotomy, one that forced ones to listen. "Seven Kings, or is it eight now? Eight King you lived through, and yet, not a single feat to your name."

A cacophony of sound surged out, of Walder's sons shouting insults and slurs at the blatant disrespect. Cat put a hand over her sons hand to stop his course, yet the young man was undeterred.

"All you do is whine about your so called misfortune, how your reputation is in shambles, ignoring the fact that it is your actions that caused all your grievances, how you still have the audacity, as an 99 year old man, to take advantage of young maidens in order to make you child, how you'd sell any of your offspring if it meant getting an inch of power, the extent of your cowardice in not unknown either, the Late Lord Frey, whose troops are too tardy to fight any battles, the Oathbreaker, the Weasel Lord."

Walder's face was red as the sun, his eyes seemingly about to pop out of their sockets; he points at the three and screams with his raspy voice. "Seize them!"

Out of the surrounding men, six step up, one toward Catelyn, two for Bolton and three for Robb.

One of the crossbowmen somehow didn't understand the order, as instead of simply pointing his arrow at the three, he pulls the trigger.

Robb swiftly pushes Roose out of the way, perhaps saving his life, as Catelyn screams in distress.

Everything happened too late, Robb pulls out two knifes out of their holsters, he throws one at the crossbowman, which sticks tight in his eye, and the other toward one of the men heading toward Cat, which strikes his neck.

He then unsheathes his sword, and with blistering speed cuts one of the attackers head, the other two, startled by the death of their comrade, are even more disoriented once Robb pushes one with his boot and stabs the other in his foot.

The man screams, letting go of his sword, Robb in turn does the same to his, grabs the other one in midair, and turns toward the Leech lord, stabbing one of his besiegers in the heart, letting go, still stuck inside his body.

He then bends down, grabs his original sword, spins around the screaming Frey with a sword in his chest, and decapitates the last.

At that point Roose had already dealt with his opponent, so in order to halt any other advance Robb grabs the injured man and lays his sword right by his neck, holding him hostage and stepping forward, ignoring his cries of help.

"This man shares some similarities with you, Lord Walder, so I'd advise you to order your children to hold their weapons if you don't wish to become a Kinslayer."

The aging lord takes a minute to register what happened. "H-halt!" He stutters out.

Robb calmly stares at Walder with his apathetic eyes. "I think now, we can finally negotiate."

It took a while, but the Frey lord managed to find a semblance of calm. "This doesn't change anything." His raspy voice echoes. "There are hundreds of men between you and the exit; there are no ways to escape, nor any method to warn your army." He says. "I thought I'd be able to collect a fine toll from you today, yet it seems that Tywin is to pay the price, kill the man, see if I care." The weasel looking man was previously admirably keeping his cool despite the hole in his foot, yet his father's lack of care seemed to have broken the dam.

"There seems to be a mistake, I am not negotiating using the life of my hostage." Robb carelessly pushes the injured Frey, and instead… He puts the edge of the sword at his own neck. "But mine own."

Catelyn lets out a small scream, yet her fear stems her voice.

"You strike me as an indecisive man, Lord Frey. So I leave you with two choices." Robb emotionlessly speaks. "You either resume your attempt at capturing me, my mother, and my vassal, in which case I kill myself, leaving the command of my army in the hands of an antsy Umber ready to bash your skull in."

"Or you accept my generous offer, which is one of your daughters or granddaughters for my vassal Bolton here." He mentions toward Roose with his sword, who hesitantly nods in assent. "A promise of a marriage between another one of your daughters, and someone to be designed later that I will grant the fortress of Moat Cailin. And a boy, to be squired under me throughout the war." He says. "Those are my conditions."

"You seem to forget, boy." Walder mentions to stern looking wiry man with a black beard, who seemingly understands and points a crossbow at Catelyn's head. "That it is you, and only you, that I need alive. If this was your plan, then you were foolish to bring both your own mother and your strongest vassal into this castle."

The young Stark stares impassively back. "My mother Is a Tully, and no matter the excuse you cannot justify murdering the daughter of your liege lord even if she was 'a traitor', and I trust Lord Bolton to be smart enough to orchestrate his own survival." He swiftly responds. "You better make a decision before my arm goes weary, Lord Walder. It would be a shame if you were late, again."

The next day, the Northern army left the Twins 24 000 strong instead of 20 000, and all he had to pay for it is a favorable betrothal, a squireship, and a promise of a distant marriage between a Frey and North vassal over a dilapidated fortress.

It is said that when Robb Stark exited the twins unscathed with Lord Bolton and Lady Catelyn, his mother had slapped him so hard the sound reverberated through the whole camp.