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There was something that Cat desperately needed to do, something that she desperately needed to find, and she didn’t know what that thing was, but she needed to find it, or else she would prove herself a failure as the new-made lady of Winterfell. The servants would whisper “southron lady” behind her back, and the steward would fix her a look of thinly-veiled derision. And what would her husband think of her? Cat was running through Winterfell looking for the thing she needed, but the keep was a rabbit warren, and she felt as though she were trapped in a labyrinth of identical hallways. She looked in the storerooms, in the stables, down a well, under her bedclothes, places that made no sense. When she got to her husband’s bedchamber, he was standing inside, and she knew it was all a dream.
Since the day the septon had knitted their souls together, she had seen her husband more often in her dreams than in her waking days. Her husband was miles away, fighting against the crown. Meanwhile, she remained at Riverrun, waiting for her baby to be born. Afraid that the gods would make her a widow when she was barely a bride. Would that make her twice a widow, first the elder brother and then the younger?
“My lord,” she said, unable to find any other words to say.
“My lady,” he replied stiffly.
A long silence stretched out between them, doing nothing to dispel the worry twisted up in Catelyn’s chest.
“How do you?” he finally asked.
“Well, I thank you,” she said.
They stared at each other with nothing to say. She might as well have been making dinner conversation with a guest of her father’s—or a bashful squire who didn’t know how to talk to a lord’s daughter.
She felt the need to explain herself, excuse herself. “I was looking for—" she began, and then bit her tongue. The item she had been looking for was a figment of her imagination, and she would only embarrass herself trying to explain. Cat wondered if her cheeks could show red in a dream.
Eddard knit his brow, looking as if he would speak. Catelyn waited with trepidation. But before he spoke a word, there came a booming sound like thunder above them. No—a voice shouting in the next room, too muffled for Cat to make out the words. Her vision blurred. Eddard was gone in a blink.
She came to in her own bedroom in Riverrun, alone in bed, the hazy blue of pre-dawn light painting her walls. Somewhere, a bird was singing.
The thought came to her with bone-deep certainty: he had been just as afraid as she. She could perceive a thorny, tangled bramble of uncertainty in his chest, and it felt the same as the fear inside her.
“One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever,” the septon had pronounced over their clasped hands as they knelt before the altar. It sent a shiver down Catelyn’s spine. Did this new knowledge come from the gossamer thread between them, like the dreams they shared?
Catelyn stared up at the ceiling. If he was confused too, there was a comfort in that. But she didn’t know what to think of it.
After her son was born, she had few thoughts to spare for her husband. He was far away, and Robb was here, in her arms, warm and solid and real. His slightest movement enchanted her. Sometimes, when she held him to her breast, she felt a surge of jealous love so intense it overwhelmed her. She imagined that if someone tried to take him away, she would snarl like a wolf. She would not have a wetnurse, so she woke in the night frequently to feed him, and she dreamt little.
She wondered if Robb’s eyes would turn dark in the coming weeks, or if they would stay Tully blue.
Finally, the day came when the rebellion was over. News spread from King’s Landing of the sack of the city. News of Robert’s coronation and the end of the siege at Storm’s End. Then, after everything, news that Ned Stark was riding north.
Catelyn rode to Winterfell in a carriage, Robb and her maid with her. Every bump in the road jolted her painfully.
When Ned saw her and the baby, and she saw the look in his eyes, her first conscious thought was not of love or happiness, but pride. She had not failed in her duty. She had given him an heir. Family, Duty, Honor rang in her thoughts. Since her mother’s health began to fail, she had become lady of her father’s house in all but name, and the knowledge she gained would stand her in good stead. For years, she had waited in expectation of the day she would be Lady Stark.
She had not expected to find Ned Stark’s bastard in Winterfell’s nursery.
She knew that men fathered bastards and kept mistresses. But men did not acknowledge their bastards openly and raise their mistresses’ sons next to their trueborn sons. Some evenings, Eddard came into when she was there, nursing Robb or merely sewing baby clothes in a chair beside his cradle. When he held Robb and gently smoothed the down of his hair, it filled Catelyn with warmth. She tutored him in how to hold a babe properly. He smiled when Robb gripped his finger in one tiny, obstinate fist. Something fluttered inside Cat’s heart.
Sometimes he immediately went to Jon’s cradle, scooped him into his arms, doted on him. Stood in front of the window with a look of rapt attention, studying the baby’s crinkled face. Catelyn left the room. She burned with resentment.
How much he must have loved the bastard’s mother. Catelyn fell asleep seething with thoughts of her, the woman unknown and unseen whose remembrance she could never escape.
Catelyn dreamed a room that smelled of blood and roses.
A woman was lying in bed, and for a moment Cat thought it was her mother, weak from fever. She remembered the suffocating air of the sickroom, the dreadful silence. Then the dream carried Catelyn closer to the bed, and she saw that the woman was a girl of no more than sixteen with a pale face surrounded by dark strands of elf-knotted hair. She was clearly a Stark by her looks.
Lyanna Stark, she realized. She was looking at Ned’s sister through Ned’s eyes. He knelt by Lyanna’s side. His armor clanked against the stone floor. Blue rose petals spilled over the bedclothes as Lyanna raised a hand toward Ned’s face.
“Promise me,” the girl said, her voice thin and rasping. “Promise me.”
Promise what? Promise what? Cat thought. Ned clasped his sister’s hand tightly, but said nothing.
A baby’s cry pierced the air. Cat looked down and Ned was holding a baby in his arms.
“Promise me,” Lyanna Stark said.
Catelyn awoke with her heart pounding, the baby’s cry ringing in her ears. She threw the covers off. Her bare feet carried her down the darkened corridor to her husband’s chamber, and she pushed open the door without a second’s thought.
Eddard sat on the edge of the huge bed, his feet flat on the floor. A hand over his face.
“I have to know,” Catelyn said in a rush. “I beg you to tell me.”
He looked up at her. “You saw my dream.” It was half a question.
“Who? Who is the boy’s mother?” Catelyn demanded.
Eddard’s mouth compressed into a thin line. A fire was kindling in his eyes. “I will not name her, to you or anyone.”
“Please. I don’t understand,” Catelyn said. She balled up her fists at her side until her fingernails bit into her palms.
“I swore an oath, and I will not be foresworn.” He spoke in a voice low and rough. He was on his feet now, the muscles of his jaw tight. For a second, she though wildly that he might grab her, or strike her. It was the first time in their marriage, and the last time, she was afraid of him.
Instead, he turned away from her suddenly. As if he scorned the sight of her, she thought. As if he were working to control himself.
Cat fell to her knees. “Please. I swear to you—I will never tell another living soul. I will never ask another question about her.” She swallowed hard. “Whatever it is, I will guard your secret with my life. But I can’t bear—I can’t bear it, all the hours thinking how much you love another woman’s child.”
She dropped her eyes to the floor. For a moment, all she could do was feel the pounding of her heart. Then, to her shock, Ned bent to take her hands in his. He pulled her to her feet gently.
“Do not kneel,” he said.
Eddard let out a long sigh. When he spoke, his words came haltingly.
“You saw in my dream,” he said, “the moment when Lyanna gave him to me. Jon is her son, not mine. My nephew.”
Catelyn wet her lips, but remembered what she had just said. She would not ask another question.
“If it were to be known that Jon is Lyanna’s son, and who his real father was—” He broke off. “His life would be in danger. I promised that I would keep him safe. That promise means more to me than a mere reputation. But, my lady, I have not known another woman since we were married.”
Tears stung Catelyn’s eyes. Ned’s expression turned to one of confusion and worry, and she could have laughed at him for it.
“Thank you,” she said, tension rushing out of her with the words. She wiped at her eyes, her foolish tears. “Thank you, my lord.”
Looking at a loss for what to do, Ned put a tentative hand on her shoulder. She closed the distance between them with one step and buried her face in his night shirt. His arm slid around her.
After a long moment, Catelyn opened her eyes and said against her husband’s shoulder: “I want to look in on—on Robb and Jon.”
“I will go with you,” he said.