Still, she was struck again by how strangely men behaved when it came to their bastards. Ned had always been fiercely protective of Jon, and Ser Cortnay Penrose had given up his life for this Edric Storm, yet Roose Bolton's bastard had meant less to him than one of his dogs, to judge from the tone of the queer cold letter Edmure had gotten from him not three days past. He had crossed the Trident and was marching on Harrenhal as commanded, he wrote. "A strong castle, and well garrisoned, but His Grace shall have it, if I must kill every living soul within to make it so." He hoped His Grace would weigh that against the crimes of his bastard son, whom Ser Rodrik Cassel had put to death. "A fate he no doubt earned," Bolton had written. "Tainted blood is ever treacherous, and Ramsay's nature was sly, greedy, and cruel. I count myself well rid of him. The trueborn sons my young wife has promised me would never have been safe while he lived."
The sound of hurrying footsteps drove the morbid thoughts from her head. Ser Desmond's squire dashed panting into the room and knelt. "My lady . . . Lannisters . . . across the river."
"Take a long breath, lad, and tell it slowly."
He did as she bid him. "A column of armored men," he reported. "Across the Red Fork. They are flying a purple unicorn below the lion of Lannister."
Some son of Lord Brax. Brax had come to Riverrun once when she was a girl, to propose wedding one of his sons to her or Lysa. She wondered whether it was this same son out there now, leading the attack.
The Lannisters had ridden out of the southeast beneath a blaze of banners, Ser Desmond told her when she ascended to the battlements to join him. "A few outriders, no more," he assured her. "The main strength of Lord Tywin's host is well to the south. We are in no danger here."
South of the Red Fork the land stretched away open and flat. From the watchtower Catelyn could see for miles. Even so, only the nearest ford was visible. Edmure had entrusted Lord Jason Mallister with its defense, as well as that of three others farther upriver. The Lannister riders were milling about uncertainly near the water, crimson and silver banners flapping in the wind. "No more than fifty, my lady," Ser Desmond estimated.
Catelyn watched the riders spread out in a long line. Lord Jason's men waited to receive them behind rocks and grass and hillocks. A trumpet blast sent the horsemen forward at a ponderous walk, splashing down into the current. For a moment they made a brave show, all bright armor and streaming banners, the sun flashing off the points of their lances.
"Now," she heard Brienne mutter.
It was hard to make out what was happening, but the screams of the horses seemed loud even at this remove, and beneath them Catelyn heard the fainter clash of steel on steel. A banner vanished suddenly as its bearer was swept under, and soon after the first dead man drifted past their walls, borne along by the current. By then the Lannisters had pulled back in confusion. She watched as they re-formed, conferred briefly, and galloped back the way they had come. The men on the walls shouted taunts after them, though they were already too far off to hear.
Ser Desmond slapped his belly. "Would that Lord Hoster could have seen that. It would have made him dance."
"My father's dancing days are past, I fear," Catelyn said, "and this fight is just begun. The Lannisters will come again. Lord Tywin has twice my brother's numbers."
"He could have ten times and it would not matter," Ser Desmond said. "The west bank of the Red Fork is higher than the east, my lady, and well wooded. Our bowmen have good cover, and a clear field for their shafts . . . and should any breach occur, Edmure will have his best knights in reserve, ready to ride wherever they are most sorely needed. The river will hold them."
"I pray that you are right," Catelyn said gravely.
That night they came again. She had commanded them to wake her at once if the enemy returned, and well after midnight a serving girl touched her gently by the shoulder. Catelyn sat up at once. "What is it?"
"The ford again, my lady."
Wrapped in a bedrobe, Catelyn climbed to the roof of the keep. From there she could see over the walls and the moonlit river to where the battle raged. The defenders had built watchfires along the bank, and perhaps the Lannisters thought to find them night-blind or unwary. If so, it was folly. Darkness was a chancy ally at best. As they waded in to breast their way across, men stepped in hidden pools and went down splashing, while others stumbled over stones or gashed their feet on the hidden caltrops. The Mallister bowmen sent a storm of fire arrows hissing across the river, strangely beautiful from afar. One man, pierced through a dozen times, his clothes afire, danced and whirled in the knee-deep water until at last he fell and was swept downstream. By the time his body came bobbing past Riverrun, the fires and his life had both been extinguished.
A small victory, Catelyn thought when the fighting had ended and the surviving foemen had melted back into the night, yet a victory nonetheless. As they descended the winding turret steps, Catelyn asked Brienne for her thoughts. "That was the brush of Lord Tywin's fingertip, my lady," the girl said. "He is probing, feeling for a weak point, an undefended crossing. If he does not find one, he will curl all his fingers into a fist and try and make one." Brienne hunched her shoulders. "That's what I'd do. Were I him." Her hand went to the hilt of her sword and gave it a little pat, as if to make certain it was still there.
And may the gods help us then, Catelyn thought. Yet there was nothing she could do for it. That was Edmure's battle out there on the river; hers was here inside the castle.
The next morning as she broke her fast, she sent for her father's aged steward, Utherydes Wayn. "Have Ser Cleos Frey brought a flagon of wine. I mean to question him soon, and I want his tongue well loosened."
"As you command, my lady."
Not long after, a rider with the Mallister eagle sewn on his breast arrived with a message from Lord Jason, telling of another skirmish and another victory. Ser Flement Brax had tried to force a crossing at a different ford six leagues to the south. This time the Lannisters shortened their lances and advanced across the river behind on foot, but the Mallister bowmen had rained high arcing shots down over their shields, while the scorpions Edmure had mounted on the riverbank sent heavy stones crashing through to break up the formation. "They left a dozen dead in the water, only two reaching the shallows, where we dealt with them briskly," the rider reported. He also told of fighting farther upstream, where Lord Karyl Vance held the fords. "Those thrusts too were turned aside, at grievous cost to our foes."
Perhaps Edmure was wiser than I knew, Catelyn thought. His lords all saw the sense in his battle plans, why was I so blind? My brother is not the little boy I remember, no more than Robb is.
She waited until evening before going to pay her call upon Ser Cleos Frey, reasoning that the longer she delayed, the drunker he was likely to be. As she entered the tower cell, Ser Cleos stumbled to his knees. "My lady, I knew naught of any escape. The Imp said a Lannister must needs have a Lannister escort, on my oath as a knight - "
"Arise, ser." Catelyn seated herself. "I know no grandson of Walder Frey would be an oathbreaker." Unless it served his purpose. "You brought peace terms, my brother said."
"I did." Ser Cleos lurched to his feet. She was pleased to see how unsteady he was.
"Tell me," she commanded, and he did.
When he was done, Catelyn sat frowning. Edmure had been right, these were no terms at all, except . . . "Lannister will exchange Arya and Sansa for his brother?"
"Yes. He sat on the Iron Throne and swore it."
"Before witnesses?"
"Before all the court, my lady. And the gods as well. I said as much to Ser Edmure, but he told me it was not possible, that His Grace Robb would never consent."
"He told you true." She could not even say that Robb was wrong. Arya and Sansa were children. The Kingslayer, alive and free, was as dangerous as any man in the realm. That road led nowhere. "Did you see my girls? Are they treated well?"
Ser Cleos hesitated. "I . . . yes, they seemed . . . "
He is fumbling for a lie, Catelyn realized, but the wine has fuddled his wits. "Ser Cleos," she said coolly, "you forfeited the protection of your peace banner when your men played us false. Lie to me, and you'll hang from the walls beside them. Believe that. I shall ask you once more - did you see my daughters?"
His brow was damp with sweat. "I saw Sansa at the court, the day Tyrion told me his terms. She looked most beautiful, my lady. Perhaps a, a bit wan. Drawn, as it were."
Sansa, but not Arya. That might mean anything. Arya had always been harder to tame. Perhaps Cersei was reluctant to parade her in open court for fear of what she might say or do. They might have her locked safely out of sight. Or they might have killed her. Catelyn shoved the thought away. "His terms, you said . . . yet Cersei is Queen Regent."
"Tyrion spoke for both of them. The queen was not there. She was indisposed that day, I was told."
"Curious." Catelyn thought back to that terrible trek through the Mountains of the Moon, and the way Tyrion Lannister had somehow seduced that sellsword from her service to his own. The dwarf is too clever by half. She could not imagine how he had survived the high road after Lysa had sent him from the Vale, yet it did not surprise her. He had no part in Ned's murder, at the least. And he came to my defense when the clansmen attacked us. If I could trust his word . . .
She opened her hands to look down at the scars across her fingers. His dagger's marks, she reminded herself. His dagger, in the hand of the killer he paid to open Bran's throat. Though the dwarf denied it, to be sure. Even after Lysa locked him in one of her sky cells and threatened him with her moon door, he had still denied it. "He lied," she said, rising abruptly. "The Lannisters are liars every one, and the dwarf is the worst of them. The killer was armed with his own knife."
Ser Cleos stared. "I know nothing of any - "
"You know nothing," she agreed, sweeping from the cell. Brienne fell in beside her, silent. It is simpler for her, Catelyn thought with a pang of envy. She was like a man in that. For men the answer was always the same, and never farther away than the nearest sword. For a woman, a mother, the way was stonier and harder to know.
She took a late supper in the Great Hall with her garrison, to give them what encouragement she could. Rymund the Rhymer sang through all the courses, sparing her the need to talk. He closed with the song he had written about Robb's victory at Oxcross. "And the stars in the night were the eyes of his wolves, and the wind itself was their song." Between the verses, Rymund threw back his head and howled, and by the end, half of the hall was howling along with him, even Desmond Grell, who was well in his cups. Their voices rang off the rafters.
Let them have their songs, if it makes them brave, Catelyn thought, toying with her silver goblet.
"There was always a singer at Evenfall Hall when I was a girl," Brienne said quietly. "I learned all the songs by heart."
"Sansa did the same, though few singers ever cared to make the long journey north to Winterfell." I told her there would be singers at the king's court, though. I told her she would hear music of all sorts, that her father could find some master to help her learn the high harp. Oh, gods forgive me . . .