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“’What if the wolves come?"
"Yield."’ - A Clash of Kings
--
Catelyn is sixteen when she journeys to Winterfell for the very first time, to lay eyes upon the castle that will one day be her home.
It is a visit that is long past due. She has been betrothed to Brandon Stark since she was twelve, and he has dutifully come to see her every year since then, but the visits are always at her own home of Riverrun. The winter has not been long but it has been fierce, making passage through the Neck treacherous. But spring seems in the air, and with the milder weather her father had thought it time for his daughter to see the land she would one day be lady of.
Her uncle is less enamored of the idea; but then, he has been suspicious of the betrothal from the start. “They are a queer sort, the Starks,” the Blackfish had grumbled, his thick brows furrowing. “There are strange stories of them. They say they’re shapeshifters, wargs, that strange creatures live within their godswood.”
Stories do not bother Catelyn, and she is surprised that her uncle, such a practical man, heeds them at all. After all, there are stories of the Dornish, of the crannogmen of the Neck, of creatures beyond the Wall and beyond the Narrow Sea. People always tell stories of those who are different, of things and places they do not understand.
And truthfully, Catelyn is not eager to believe wild tales of her betrothed. Handsome and charming, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that she is only now starting to understand, there are far worse matches that could be made than one with Brandon Stark. She wants to think him gallant and true; she has little interest in stories of how the men in the North are as wild as their lands.
Even in the milder weather, the journey is long and wearisome. There is a wheelhouse that she could make use of, but Catelyn is restless after the winter months spent inside and so she rides most of the way, the hood of her cloak pulled over her bright hair to ward against the chill.
The household is assembled when they finally enter the gates of the castle. In the center is Lord Rickard, but she cannot help but look at Brandon first, standing to the left of his father. It is natural; Brandon is the sort of man that people cannot help but look at, and he stands there tall and proud with the air of one who knows he is important, his arms clasped over his chest. A little smile tugs at the corner of his lips when he meets her eye, and in her chest, her heart skips a beat at the sight.
And then she allows her gaze to wander to the other side of Brandon, to the figures standing beside him, people that she can only imagine must be his brothers and sister. There is one who must not be much younger than Brandon, though he is shorter and much less handsome, with a grim face and eyes hard as granite, his hands clasped behind his back. Beside him is a girl about Lysa’s age with dirt on her dress and tangles in her long dark hair, forgotten blooms falling from behind her ear to nestle on her shoulder. She elbows a gangly boy at her side, as tall as she is but with the air of one who has not yet grown into his limbs. My family-to-be, she thinks, somewhat bemused, but truthfully, her future good-siblings interest her little. She already has a brother and a sister of her own, and though it may be unkind to think so, the other Starks seem to fall into shadow when standing beside their brother – Brandon Stark is a pool of sunshine, a burning inferno all of his own, and she cannot look away.
Ever the gallant host, Brandon takes great pride in escorting her about Winterfell – the rookery and the Great Hall, the turrets and towers, even into the crypts where the kings of winters past rest. It is ominous enough that she presses herself uncertainly against his side, and his solid warm strength feels enough to keep her safe while his indulgent chuckle soothes her nerves. He holds her palm to the weathered stone walls and as he had promised her before, she can feel the pulse of the hot springs as they pass behind the stone like a heartbeat.
“And in the godswood, there are weirwoods the size and color of which you will never see in the south, and pools so warm and deep and still that it is like being born again,” he whispers to her over dinner. There is a great feast for the party visiting from the Riverlands, an endless parade of courses, and music and dancing that the people take to exuberantly, but he speaks to her lowly and intimately, as though they are the only two in all the world. “The heart tree is so white that it glows like a second moon.”
“Oh, I should so like to visit it on the morn,” Catelyn says eagerly, and Brandon smiles at her, the light from the candles on the table catching on the white of his teeth and making them glisten.
“Oh, no,” he protests. “It is a thing that must be seen by moonlight. You shall see,” he adds, but he does not elaborate as the dining is ended and the music begins, tables pushed aside to widen the dance floor. The tunes are less refined, rougher than they are in the south, but Brandon dances with her with the skill to match any southron courtier. He dances with her once, twice, and then he leads his little sister to the floor and the pace they strike is much faster, almost wild. He spins Lyanna round and round, so quickly that Catelyn fears they will lose control completely and go flying in opposite directions, but they only laugh and laugh as if it is some great game that only they know the rules to.
Suddenly discomfited, she looks away, glancing at the other Stark siblings still at the table. The youngest, Benjen, taps his foot and whoops with glee at the antics of his brother and sister, but the middle son, Eddard, only sits quietly and observes. He has been very silent, very solemn all the evening long, so unlike his siblings who radiate joy and charm and exuberance. There is a coldness about him, a darkness in his eyes, one that makes Catelyn want to draw her cloak around her tighter, one that makes her remember her uncle’s warnings about wargs and skin-changers, of creatures of the forest and of nightmares.
But surely, she tries to reason, even as she sneaks another sidelong glance at Eddard Stark, surely they are just stories, and there is no truth to them at all. To think otherwise would to think like a silly child, and she need only catch Brandon’s winsome smile to know that she wants to be a child no longer.
Brandon’s shirt is damp with sweat at the end of the festivities, and he smells of musk and man when he leads her down the hall to her chambers. He stops a few doors short of where she shall be staying with her septa, conscious of the sense of propriety, but he leans down – how tall he is! – to whisper in her ear.
“Come to the godswood, when the old crone is asleep. Come to the godswood, and I will show you all.”
She can feel the brush of his lips against the shell of her ear, teasing, promising, and he lingers there for a long moment. His breath is warm as it gusts over her skin, but it sends shivers dancing down her spine, and she is paralyzed in the spot, looking at him from beneath her lowered lashes, wanting to demurely retreat and boldly push forward at the same time, both reluctant and desirous.
He spares her the decision, pulling back and giving her a placid smile as though he is not affected in the slightest. And perhaps he is not; there is something very other about him in that moment, sometime that she attributes to the years between them – few, but critical. “Come to the godswood,” he repeats, and then he is gone, like the wisps of a dream, and she is alone in the dark.
--
Lightly slippered, Catelyn’s steps are nearly silent in the halls of the sleeping castle, and she can hardly believe her own daring. She has always been the good girl, the obedient child, and going to meet her betrothed in the godswood in the dead of night is something she would expect of Lysa, rather than herself.
She half-expects to be stopped - that her septa will wake, that her father will somehow know, that a guard will halt her, but she does not encounter a single person as she hurries through the castle, not even Brandon. Outside, a light snow has begun, coating the world in a dusting of white, and she pulls her cloak tighter as she glances over her shoulder once more to be sure, and then darts towards the godswood at the edge of the castle.
Near the edge of the wood she dawdles, waiting for Brandon, shifting from foot to foot, both restless with anticipation and chilled. Still within sight, the castle sits dark and silent, and she curses her folly in not asking where, exactly, she should meet her betrothed. The heart tree, she recalls, he had spoken of the heart tree, and surely if she follows the path it would lead her to the middle of the wood?
The trees that bracket her way are tall and foreboding, casting long shadows along her way, and studiously, she keeps her head down and her gaze forward, blind to the rustles in the brush and deaf to the grumbles that accompany them, that remind her that though Brandon has not appeared yet, she is far from alone. The godswood of Winterfell is nothing like the godswood of Riverrun – she had expected a garden, light and airy and welcoming like the one at home, but this is a darker wood by far.
Belatedly, she realizes that she should have marked her path, and it is through luck alone that she finds her way to the center of the wood, to the mighty heart tree that grasps at the sky with its bone-white fingers, so pale that it indeed seems to glow in the darkness. And Brandon is right, it is a beautiful sight, but a disquieting one, as well. The carved face seems to snarl at her, the red eyes gleam with displeasure. They name her stranger, intruder, and it is only then that Catelyn is frightened, only then that she realizes that she should have been all along. I am lost.
Heart pounding as she begins to realize the extent of her folly, she turns wildly away, clenching her clammy hands into fists in an effort to still her trembling. And the heart tree with its scowling face is nothing compared to what stands before her now, for she is not, as she had thought, alone after all.
She sees the eyes first, glowing angrily in the dark. Those alone would be frightening enough, but it is only a heartbeat later that she sees the long snout, and the gleaming white teeth, before the creature steps forward into a pool of moonlight and she sees it is a wolf, the largest and fiercest she has ever seen. She has not seen many in her life; wolves do not stalk the godswood of Riverrun, but the creature before her is the sort she has only seen in picture books, heard of in fables. It is close enough that she can feel the damp exhale of its breath on her face, near enough that she can see the flecks of gold in its grey eyes.
She opens her mouth to scream but nothing escapes beyond a rough gasp; she is paralyzed with fear, breathless and voiceless in horror. Surely, she thinks desperately, surely this is a nightmare, and she demands of herself wake up, Cat, wake up, wake up!
And then suddenly she is moving, she is running, tearing down the path the way she came, hearing the heavy thud of the creature’s footsteps behind her. It is an enormous monster, surely it could easily overtake her, but it remains just a pace or so behind, as though it is taunting her, teasing her – playing with its food before devouring its prey.
She comes to a fork in the path and she curses herself again for not marking her way. I do not remember. There is no time to think, no time to try and remember, and she tears down the left path, her gown clutched in her hands to keep it from catching beneath her slippers. For a moment, she can hear nothing more than her own footsteps and panicked breathing, and she wonders if she has lost the wolf at the turn, or perhaps if it had found a better prey to pursue.
Catelyn twists her head to glance over at her shoulder, and it is yet another mistake she makes.
Her foot catches beneath an uplifted root, and for a moment she is completely airborne before she falls in a heap, landing hard on her arms and her stomach, the wind knocked from her. She gasps harshly, trying to catch her breath, and she rolls shakily onto her back to see that she had supposed wrong, that the wolf is watching her from only a pace or two away, its eyes illuminated by the moonlight that dapples through the trees above.
Her stomach turns as she locks eyes with the beast, its eyes gleaming – in amusement? Satisfaction? Perhaps it is merely hunger – but the terror has fled her body, replaced instead with a grim sort of numbness. She is going to die - here, tonight, alone - and there is nothing she can do to stop it. The only thing that remains is to accept her fate, and hope that someone will find her body in the morn.
She hopes that someone is not her father. She would not like for him to see her that way.
She closes her eyes, resigned.
A loud, angry yelp fills the air, and for a moment, she thinks perhaps it is she that has cried out, in pain or fear as the animal pounced. But there is no pain, not even a pressure of the wolf’s weight upon her, and though Catelyn knows nothing of the northern gods worshipped in these woods, she cannot imagine that they would be so kind as to give her such a painless death.
She opens her eyes again, and the animal is distracted, looking to its right, its lips drawn back in an angry snarl. From that angle, she can see the arrow lodged into the meat of its shoulder, the source of its ire, and the cause of its cry. Only a few feet away, a man stands, shrouded in shadow from the trees, but illuminated enough that she can make out the bow held before him, the second arrow he draws in preparation. “Begone,” the man snaps, his voice sharp, his fingers drawing back the string in warning.
Catelyn watches, eyes wide in horror, waiting for the wolf to make its choice between her, the easy prey, and the man who has upset it so. But to her shock, with a glance and a huff, the creature bounds back the way it came, the first arrow still firmly ensconced.
She watches it leave, her breath coming in ragged gasps, and then she turns her startled gaze to her savior as he lowers his bow. Though she cannot make out his features, he seems familiar, in the set of his broad shoulders, the width of his stance. “Brandon,” she breathes, her heart fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird, and tears spring to her eyes and blur her vision in her relief. But unclear as her sight may be, when the man steps forward and into a patch of moonlight, there is no mistaking that it is not her betrothed at all.
Shorter, less handsome, but a welcome sight all the same, Eddard Stark holds his bow at his side and looks at her gravely. “Lady Catelyn,” he greets her solemnly, the first words he has ever spoken to her, though she is still too stunned to answer or even rise to her feet.
He does not ask how she came to be so far in the wood, and she does not ask him how he found her. They look at each other in silence for a long, heavy moment, before Eddard extends his hand to her and gratefully, she takes it.
--
The castle is still sleeping when they return.
It is a strange thing, that so much could have happened and no one would be aware. She wonders if Brandon is still sleeping in his chamber, if he has forgotten about her entirely, if he had never expected her to come to meet him at all. He knows her, he knows that she is not one to throw caution to the wind. No doubt he had meant it as a jape, the sort of romantic nonsense that Lysa would swoon over but Catelyn would normally scoff at. A fool, she thinks, as she follows a pace or two behind Eddard, as he leads her through the corridors. I am nothing more than a fool.
When she raises her shamed gaze from the floor, she realizes that she does not know where she is being led. The halls are unfamiliar; it is not the way to the chambers she shares with her septa. For a moment, she fears that he is leading her to his own bedchambers, and she shrinks back, abruptly again the shy maiden, the girl so suddenly and violently aware that she is a stranger in a land that she does not know or understand. When he stops, his hand on a door handle, he seems to sense her wariness, and he glances back at her. His lips curl into the barest hint of a smile – more a grimace than anything, and he assures her, “It is my father’s solar, my lady. He keeps some of the maester’s more basic supplies in his desk. We can tend to that wound before anyone sees it.”
“Wound?” she echoes, her voice sounding strange to even her own ears, and Eddard puts his fingers around her wrist, turning her arm so she can see where the sleeve is torn on the inside, the edges stained red.
His words prove true when he pushes open the door, revealing a large, empty solar, the moonlight pouring through the large open windows and casting everything in an eerie, dim glow. She shivers, the gooseflesh rising on her arms, and mistaking her discomfort for cold, Eddard goes to tend to the fire. “Please, sit,” he gestures after too long. There is only one seat, Lord Rickard’s, and even as she lowers herself gingerly into the chair, it feels like sacrilege. She perches on the very edge, her hands in her lap rather than on the rough-hewn wooden arms, and even from there her slippers barely brush the ground – a seat for a bear, rather than a man. Or a wolf, she thinks.
Her arm is bleeding on the white tender underside stretching from her elbow to her wrist – likely from her fall - and with fingers gentler than she expected, Eddard Stark crouches before her and cleans the mess away with a cool cloth before applying a salve to the torn skin. It is pink and sticky, and it stings, but that is not what makes her cry. She cries because she is so damnably stupid, just a little girl for all that she thought herself a woman, for what woman of sense would wander alone in the woods? A place she does not know, and more importantly, a place she does not belong? And yet if she cannot manage the godswood beside the castle, how shall she be the lady of the north, strange and terrible as it seems?
She tries to be quiet, but her tears splash down upon her arm and Eddard’s work, and he looks up, surprised and abashed. “Am I hurting you?” he asks, his voice laced with concern, and with his face so close Catelyn has a chance to examine him again, to give a better look than the sidelong glances she had taken in the Great Hall.
He is not so much older than she – a year, perhaps two. He is not long a man, just as she is barely more than a girl. She had thought his eyes so cold and hard when she first saw him standing in the courtyard, but they are softer now, kinder. He is indeed not very handsome but then at the moment, with her arm bleeding and her eyes red and face blotchy and streaked with tears, she is no beauty herself.
He looks at her expectantly, and she realizes she has not answered his question. “No,” she replies, her voice wavering. “Forgive me. It is not you; I am just angry.”
At herself, she means, but Eddard nods resolutely. “You should be angry,” he agrees, and he goes back to his task of dressing her wound, wrapping a bandage around it. “I am sorry this happened. Brandon…” he hesitates, seemingly to find the right words, “he means no harm, he thinks it just a bit of fun. But he goes too far.”
“He goes too far?” she repeats, her brow wrinkling as she mulls over his words. “Did…did Brandon know of the wolf? He knew that it was dangerous, and he sent me there anyway?” Her voice rises in volume and pitch, in her anger and indignation, and Eddard winces.
“Yes,” he answers shortly. “I would expect that he knew. But I do not think he intended any harm to you, my lady.”
“No harm? No harm?” she demands, blinded by her anger, by her tears. “How could he think that no harm would come, leading me right into the lair of a beast - “
Eddard does not answer, letting her rage instead.
“I could have been killed,” she insists. “The wolf could have killed me, if not for you, and it would have just been a bit of fun to him!”
“The wolf would not have killed you,” Eddard says quietly, his head still bent over his work.
“How could you know that?” How did you know where to find me? How did you know an arrow to the shoulder, a mere flesh wound, would send that creature running? Why would Brandon think it was all just a bit of fun? Where is Brandon now, now that the ‘fun’ has ended? A thousand questions and more swirl in her mind, and suddenly Catelyn’s head hurts and her uncle’s voice fills her head. Strange creatures live in their godswood, he had told her. Including, it would seem, wolves that chase but do not kill. The Starks are a strange sort, he had said.
Eddard does not answer her question, and so she speaks no more as they sit in silence for a long moment. “There,” he says, as he tucks the open end of the bandage beneath the rest. “Under your sleeve, they will not even be able to tell.”
For a moment, she considers asking him why he assumes she will keep quiet, why she would not tell her father what occurred, that Brandon had tricked her so cruelly. But even as the thought crosses her mind, she knows she will not say a word. She could never admit to her father that his most obedient child had snuck away to meet her betrothed in the woods at night, and even if she did, he would think her story madness. In the crackling warmth of the fire, safe inside, even Catelyn herself is not sure it is not a mere flight of fancy, or a waking dream. She had drunken more wine than usual at dinner that night.
Instead of speaking, she turns her arm over to examine Eddard’s handiwork. Neat and even, he is right that it will be unnoticeable beneath the long sleeves of her gown. “You have experience with this,” she notes, and he smiles. It is a true smile, an amused one that crinkles the corners of his eyes, and she is startled by how it transforms his face. It may be true that no one would ever describe him as a handsome man, but when he smiles at her, she wonders how she ever thought his face cold or cruel or frightening.
“Ah,” he chuckles, “I’ve helped my sister Lyanna hide many a skinned knee or scraped elbow from our lord father, it’s true.”
“Thank you,” she says, suddenly ashamed that it has taken her so long to acknowledge what he has done for her. All she has done has cry and rant, like a spoiled little girl, all manners forgotten. “For everything. For helping me. For saving me.”
His smile turns self-deprecating. “I did not save you,” he protests, and she thinks that this is another way he is unlike Brandon. Brandon would have seized upon the suggestion, would have puffed his chest and boasted of his deed and gallantry for days to any who would listen. He stands, wiping his hands on his breeches. “And I am only sorry that your stay in Winterfell has been so unpleasant.”
He guides her through the halls once more, stopping where Brandon had stopped, just earlier this evening when she had been so happy, so full of budding emotion that she had not quite understood. Now he is likely off snoring away somewhere, with not a care in the world, she thinks bitterly, but she swallows down her unpleasantness so that she may smile at her companion, however faint the expression may be. She is determined, however belatedly, to remember her courtesies, for there is little doubt that the man at her side deserves them.
“Thank you, Eddard,” she repeats softly, and he nods, solemn and quiet once more, turning from her without another word.
But he only retreats a few paces before he glances back over his shoulder at her. “Ned,” he offers, and she furrows her brow.
“I’m sorry?”
“Ned,” he says again, and his shoulders hunch up a bit, as though he is embarrassed. He shrugs. “That is what everyone calls me. And if you are to be my goodsister, you should call me that as well.”
She smiles. “Ned, then,” she agrees, and for a moment, Winterfell does not seem so strange, nor so frightening. At the very least, I have one friend, she thinks. And if she can no longer trust or depend on Brandon, she will certainly need a friend.
--
Brandon is late to breakfast the next morning, and she greets him with cold courtesy when he finally appears. If not for the presence of her father and Lord Rickard, she would ignore him entirely, and the sight of him reignites the hard ball of anger that has been sitting in her belly since the night before, back into a burning inferno of rage.
He looks tired, with shadows under his eyes, and she does not know if this makes her feel better or worse. If he had appeared fresh-eyed and rosy, perhaps she could have told herself that he had merely overslept and missed their meeting, that Eddard – Ned – had been wrong when he had called it all a bit of fun. But if Ned had been right, it gives her a bit of comfort that he did not sleep easily after playing such a trick on her. Perhaps he is tormented by guilt; Catelyn can only hope so.
He kisses her hand and greets her good morning with all his usual brightness, as though nothing were amiss, but his lips are cool and dry, the barest of brushes against her knuckles, and he cannot seem to meet her eye. When he takes his seat, he smiles and japes with his brother Benjen, but even his quips seem subdued, and Catelyn notices that he does not even look at his brother Ned, three seats down.
Where were you last night? she wants to demand, wants to make him answer in front of his father and her own, force him to explain his actions and beg her pardon. Why did you send me there, afraid and alone? She cannot help but feel hurt along with her damaged pride; she had thought that Brandon had liked her well enough, and even if his brother had spoken truly and he had meant no real harm, he had certainly sought to frighten her. That is perhaps the most difficult thing to come to terms with – that her intended had wanted to scare her. It is not a quality Catelyn had hoped for in a husband.
Catelyn picks at her meal, uninterested, only forcing herself to take a few birdlike mouthfuls when her father asks if she is ill, if perhaps the cold northern air does not agree with her. There are other things here that do not agree with me, she thinks grimly, and tries to eat.
She cannot help but glance over at Brandon every so often, a sidelong gaze, and she notices that he does not eat much either. When he does, he lifts his spoon with his left hand, bringing it to his mouth with the skill of a babe learning how to feed himself.
The sight leaves her cold, as frozen as she had been in the woods the night before.
Brandon is right-handed.
Why would he then sit down to eat, and favor his left side? What could have changed since the evening before, when he spoke to her so sweetly in the hall, that would make him grimace and reach up to ghost his fingers along his right shoulder, as though…
The Starks are a queer sort, her uncle had told her. Shapeshifters and wargs, and their godswood is full of strange creatures.
The wolf would not have killed you, Ned had told her, as he had wrapped her arm. Brandon thinks it is all just a bit of fun, but he goes too far.
Suddenly she cannot breathe, and she stands so abruptly that she nearly knocks her chair over in her haste. She can feel all the eyes of those on the main dais turn upon her, making her flesh prickle, and meeting none of their gazes, she hurries from the hall, ignoring even her father as he calls after her. She runs through the corridors blindly until finally she pushes through the door of the keep, throwing her weight against it to open it, gasping as a blast of frigid northern air slices at her face as she tumbles out into the courtyard.
She stands there for a long while, taking in deep large breaths as though she has run a thousand leagues. Outside, the world is quiet save the bustling of a few Winterfell men forgoing breakfast to begin their work early, and the sun is weak but still shining. It feels peaceful and humdrum, with the low buzz of a busy castle that is as familiar a sound to her as the rivers that run outside her bedroom window. I might as well be home, she thinks unbidden, and in the unremarkable light of day, the mad path her thoughts had wandered in the Great Hall seem silly, the wild imaginings of a scared child.
Yet her uncle is no nervous maid, and he had not been trying to frighten her when he told her that people called the Starks shapeshifters and wargs, that monsters lurked within their godswood. But the monsters of her fable books had never had beautiful faces, nor endless charms at their disposal. How easy it had been, to think them just stories from days past, magic long ago snuffed out of the world.
She had never quite understood the twinkle in Brandon’s eye, and now she is learning that there is very little of the north that she understands at all, and very little that she wants to know.
“My lady?”
As quickly as she had in the wood, Catelyn whirls at the sound of the deep voice that she once again mistakes for Brandon’s. But like the night before, it is Ned who stands there watching her, a respectable number of paces away, his face again as inscrutable as it had been the first time she had laid eyes upon him, in this very courtyard.
It is snowing again, fat lazy flakes that flutter silently to the ground. She had not even noticed, lost in her own thoughts and worries. Shaken from her solitude, she shivers as the snow lands on the sleeves of her gown, leaving wet kisses on her skin through the fabric. In her hurry to leave the hall, she had not thought to grab her cloak.
Silently, Ned crosses the distance that remains between them, proffering his cloak on his arm. “Thank you,” she says automatically, always the proper lady, swinging the large, heavy fur thing about her shoulders. Ned, she notices, seems not at all bothered by the snow. “You are not cold?”
“No. Living in the North, you adjust.”
“Oh.”
She finds it hard to believe that she could ever adjust.
She stares at her feet so that she does not have to look at him. She cannot help but be wary of him once more, despite his kindness to her the night before. She has learned all too painfully that she should not trust so easily, that mistaking a sweet word or gesture for goodness or honesty is foolish. She had been so taken by Brandon, so caught up in girlish excitement, and at the very best, he had sought to trick her by sending her into danger, and at the very worst…
Would Ned tell her, if she asked? Or would he laugh at her, as easily as she had laughed at her uncle’s fears and warnings? It sounds mad in her own mind, and she cannot even bring herself to call the words to her lips. “Are you…is it all of you, then?” she whispers, suddenly remembering the wild way Brandon had danced with his sister, like creatures possessed. She glances up below lowered lashes in time to see Ned frown, a crease forming in his brow.
“Is what all of us?” he asks, his voice similarly quiet, but it is hardly a question at all. He knows what she is asking, the answers she seeks. Will he truly make her give voice to them, when they sound so foolish even in her own head?
“Please do not treat me as though I were mad,” she says quietly. For I already fear that I may be, she does not add.
He sighs, a shadow crossing his face. The night before, Catelyn had marveled at how much younger he had looked, little more than a boy, but now his is the face of a man who has seen a thousand years. “Will you walk with me?” he asks politely, now offering his arm, and though she would rather demand answers right where they stood rather than accept, she slips her hand through the crook of his elbow.
“Not in the wood,” she stipulates, and he bows his head, heading instead past the forge, towards the main gate with its wide, barren path that would eventually lead them to the Kingsroad were they to follow it far enough. The few men that they pass pay them no mind, as though it is not an unusual sight to see their future lord’s betrothed walking with the wrong Stark brother, but Ned leads them outside of their hearing regardless before turning to her.
“You needn’t be afraid,” Ned tells her, and his eyes are so earnest that she believes that he means it. To him, this is merely the way that things are, and there is no reason to fear his brothers or his sister, the members of his pack. How could he possibly understand a girl from the south, the world that she had been raised in, where such things were merely crib tales?
“I am,” she breathes, and she hates to admit it. She has always been the bravest of her father’s children, the boldest, the daughter-son her father needed until Edmure’s birth. She would leap into the river from the overhanging trees, she would race her horse across the countryside with the wind in her hair, she would listen to her father and uncle’s tales of war with wide-eyed interest while Lysa would whimper and cover her ears. She is not a fearful girl, and she is so very afraid. “I am afraid. Of Brandon. Of all of you.”
His face falls, and he seems particularly troubled by this. “You do not have to be afraid of me,” he insists, taking a half-step closer, and absurdly, she feels guilty for her own fears even as she wishes to draw back away from him. This is the same man who had saved her the night before, who had cleaned her up so she would not have to admit her folly to her father, and who is trying his best to reassure her now. He has given her no reason to be afraid, and she should not hurt him by saying so.
But then she thinks of that moment in the woods, where her eyes had met that…that creature…and she shivers, pulling Ned’s cloak closer around her. That may be the man he had been last night, the man he is now, but at supper the night before Brandon had been charming and witty and warm. How quickly these things change, twisting into things she does not understand.
He sighs heavily, the sound of one carrying a burden he cannot bear. “It is not…all of us,” he says finally, awkwardly. “Perhaps it could be. The same blood runs through all our veins. The wolf’s blood, my father calls it. Lyanna certainly has a touch of it. Brandon…” his lips twist into a smile that is more a grimace, “more than a touch. But it is still…a choice, to let that blood lead where it may.”
“Who would want that?” she whispers. The wind whips at her face, and she can feel her eyes tearing. “Who would choose that?”
“It is not their fault that they were born a bit wilder,” he answers quietly, defending his siblings even as Catelyn sees Brandon and Lyanna once more in her mind’s eye, spinning round and round. Wild, she had thought then, and wild, Ned says now, as though a dance and last night in the woods were one in the same.
“He tricked me,” she says, and her voice sways a bit beneath the weight of the betrayal. “That is his fault. And I will not marry him.” It is a decision she reaches without forethought, but once she says it, she is certain of her choice. “I will not,” she repeats, more firmly this time, and Ned looks at her with doubtful eyes.
“And what will you tell your father, when he asks why you refuse?” he asks gently. “He will not believe you.”
No, he would not, Catelyn thinks, with her heart sinking. He had never believed Uncle Brynden’s warnings, or certainly he would never have betrothed his favorite child to a house entangled in such dark enchantments. He would tell her that she had merely had a bad dream, that it is normal to have reservations about wedding. He would chuck her under the chin and tell her to be a good girl, to be his brave girl, and she would obey, as she always does.
But her father would not order her to trust Brandon, to let him into her heart or to regard him with the same starry-eyed awe that she had before her journey north, and that would be her own internal rebellion. Perhaps her betrothed had done her a favor, in letting her see the sort of man he truly is so that she may go into their marriage with open eyes.
Perhaps he sees the resignation on her face, for Ned gently takes her hand. “Perhaps when you are home, it won’t seem so bad,” he suggests. “I promise you, Brandon may not always choose the wisest course, but he would never harm you.”
“What if he does?” Catelyn asks quietly. “Perhaps not on purpose, but accidentally?”
Ned frowns again, seeming to contemplate her question, and his gaze drops to where their hands are still joined. She had not grabbed gloves either, in her haste, and he has gone without. His fingers are warm against hers. “Then an arrow will be the least of his troubles,” he says, and from the way his head is tipped down, Catelyn cannot help but notice that his ears have gone a bit pink.
It is sweet enough to break her heart, but it is a promise that would be impossible to keep, no matter how earnestly it is made. As a second son, he would be expected to rule a northern holdfast in his brother’s name, or perhaps to make an advantageous marriage whether in the north or south. He would not remain in Winterfell forever as a guard against his brother’s worst impulses.
She smiles sadly, letting her fingers ghost over the top of his knuckles before drawing her hand away. “Thank you,” she says. She does not believe him, not truly, that he could protect her, but she believes he would want to. He is a good man, a better man than his brother by far.
It is a pity, she thinks, that he will be so wasted in some small castle far away, simply due to an accident of birth.
--
Brandon and his siblings line up in a similar fashion when the Riverlands party prepares to depart, and Brandon murmurs his goodbyes into the back of her hand. Lord Rickard watches with a suspicious eye, and Catelyn wonders if he has gleaned what has happened, despite Ned’s promise to keep it a secret.
“When we meet again, my lady, it will be for our wedding,” Brandon remarks, and it sounds like a peace offering, as close to an apology as he would care to offer.
“So it would seem,” she says, and her voice is as cool as the frost in the air. “I trust that when we meet again, you will be more yourself, my lord.” She raises her eyes, meeting his gaze straight on for the first time since that night. I will not let him cow me, she thinks, and perhaps allowing her stubbornness to outweigh her fear is a fool’s maneuver, but she refuses to spend the rest of her life afraid. Ned Stark had spoken truly, when he had said that her father would not break the betrothal, and so she must rise to the station to which she has been called, strange and unbelievable as it may be.
For despite Ned’s sweet assurance, she will only have herself, the only protection at her disposal.
Brandon’s eyebrows rise, and he looks surprised, and then amused, even flashing her a hint of a smile. She wonders how she had missed how white and sharp his teeth are, all this time. “I am sure of it, my lady,” he agrees, and he bows over her hand.
--
He should not have been so sure and certain, however, because he never rides to Riverrun. Instead he makes for King’s Landing and calls for a prince to die, and when Catelyn hears of his fate, all she can think of is Ned’s words, it is not their fault that they were born a bit wilder.
She goes to the sept and lights candles – beneath the Mother, asking her to take Brandon into her keeping; beneath the Father, for Rickard Stark; beneath the Warrior, for the wild rage within her betrothed that must now be quelled; beneath the Stranger, for in the end, she had not known him at all.
She prays for him, regardless. She had been angry with him, distrustful, but he did not deserve such a fate. He did not deserve to die.
When her father tells her that Brandon’s brother will wed her, in exchange for the swords of House Tully in a rebellious uprising, she nods her assent and remembers the boy who wrapped her arm in his father’s solar, who stood with her outside the gates of Winterfell and told her that she did not have to be afraid. She had thought then of how he was a better man than his brother, and while she did not wish harm to Brandon, she cannot help but be glad to be passed to his younger, more grounded brother.
Yet regardless of his promise that day in Winterfell, she suspects she will have to gather her courage anyway. War will rage in the south and the winter winds will blow in the north, and she has to believe that someday it will end and perhaps they will be happy, then.
Brandon is gone, but the wolves are not.