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The first time I believed I might come to love Eddard Stark was on our wedding night. Not as some might think when we were first alone together, naked and abed, but before then. Not, as others might think, as we made our vows, pledging to be true to one another before the gods both old and new and not, as my sister teased, when I saw him walk into the hall, long-faced and serious with eyes glittering and cold and wearing Ice, the traditional Stark sword forged of Valyrian steel I'd last seen around his father Rickard's waist. No, the first time I believed I might someday love Ned was after our vows had been made, after the wine had been drunk, the food demolished and the music played, and it was time for the bedding ceremony... and Ned told everyone in terms clearer than daylight pouring into my father's solar that there would be no bedding. That a wedding night was neither for guests nor family, but for husband and wife alone. He brushed the hair back from my face, the flush of the day heavy on his somber face, and whispered so that only I might hear.
"I am not my brother, but were he here, I would be celebrating his marriage both gladly and with regret."
"Why regret, my... husband?" The word did not come easily. It felt foreign on my tongue, as foreign as the grey eyes I looked into. Softened by wine and perhaps by sentiment, but shrewd and determined nonetheless. Eyes that had seen their share of battle.
Ned's answer was more than I expected from one known to be so reserved. "I have long thought you lovely beyond compare, Catelyn Tully — no, Catelyn Stark — and I have an honorable yet jealous soul. I would have celebrated my brother's good fortune, but bemoaned the fact that it was not mine."
"You're flushed with wine, Eddard." This was a marriage borne of politics, not of love or even of attraction. The first time I laid eyes on the man who was to be my future husband, I counted myself lucky to be promised to his brother instead. Brandon was fire but Ned had always been ice. I had grown up expecting the blaze of heat only to find myself irrevocably tied to cold.
"Ned."
"Ned. Flushed with wine, and about to claim me for your own." For the first time, I reached up tentatively to touch his hair. It felt lighter than feathers beneath my fingers, but strong and valiant like the north itself. Silly Cat, I told myself, perhaps you're the one who's had too much wine.
"Tell me that doesn't frighten a Tully girl." His eyes gleamed by firelight and candlelight both as we made our way through the wedding crowd toward the stair. "Brandon used to say that about you. That you were young and lithe and pretty with your auburn hair and eyes like the sky, but he admired both your steel and softness. Which is it to be... Cat?" He said my name like he needed to sample it, let the sound roll around his tongue. "Softness or steel?"
The nickname and Brandon's compliments, passed along in his absence, made me smile even as they tinged the moment with sadness. "We have one thing to set straight, Ned Stark, and we'd best do it now. I am no squeamish young thing. We Tullys are born to be strong, and by your grace I am now Lady of Winterfell. That does not intimidate me." I had yet to so much as see Winterfell. The very name evoked a chill, a coldness that had long ago made itself a part of the Stark reputation, but I had no fear. A longing not to leave my home? Of course. I knew what I was accustomed to and anything new would mean an adjustment, but that was the nature of marriage. Women followed their husbands and so it had always been.
Ned — shy Ned Stark — smiled, and his smile was filled with an unexpected wolfish brilliance that fled as easily as it had appeared. "Then the gods meant you to be mine." He held a solid somber arm out to me, turned to bid goodnight and gods bless to those watching. I caught the eye of my sister and her new husband, wondering if Jon Arryn would accord Lysa the same decency Ned had insisted on for me, but an answer to that would have to wait until morning. Ned walked me through my father's house to our bedchamber, his eyes on me, his hands warmer and more capable than I had anticipated. Even though it was far from the most spectacular of nights — even though his actions seemed to be imbued more with obligation than with heat or passion — we were wed and that was that. He was not Brandon, but that mattered little. Ned Stark was my husband, for the rest of my days. I had said the words and made the pledge.
Later that night, I awoke feeling unexpectedly proud and reckless and adult. With a strange low ache in my belly, I studied my new husband as he slept. I wondered how quickly I would be with child, how many days we had here before our journey to Winterfell, what it would feel like to leave behind the only home I had known. Had my mother been here, would she have approved or had words of wisdom for me about my wedding night? Would she have rubbed the smug knowing grin from Edmure's face or let my sister marry a man old enough to be her father? Would she have had any say in the matter? Instead, all I had were my father's vain attempts at reminding me of a wife's duties, as if I couldn't possibly know. Cat, he told me, do us proud. Extend the reach of the Tullys far into the north. Be a good girl, and a good wife to Eddard. Give him many sons and daughters. Never forget: Family. Duty. Honor.
I'm sure Lysa was privy to the same speech. All our father needed do was substitute the Vale for the north and Jon for Eddard. Ridding himself of two daughters — two burdens — on the same day: if it was difficult for him I did not know, but he had our brother Edmure still. The Tullys would endure, as we always had. Family. It's what we are born to, but it's also what and whom we acquire along the way. What the future would bring was something I could not begin to divine, nor did I want to. Every day, one sunrise at a time: that was the only way I'd ever been able to live my life. I couldn't see that changing no matter who I had married.
Husband, I wanted to say by candlelight in that first dark night of our marriage, the blush of wine and the gaiety of the day will wear off, but you will be saddled with me for the rest of our days. You are not your brother, but you are my family now. I will accord you every respect, perform my duties as your wife, and honor you. I said none of it aloud but instead made the vow to myself. I would follow this man, this intimate stranger, to a land I did not know because I was a Tully and a Stark. The weight of all that history settled upon my shoulders, but that frightened me even less than now being Catelyn Stark, forever bound to the north. Maybe some day I would grow to love it there as much as I loved the Riverlands. Perhaps I would even grow to love the man whose bed and body I shared. No, I had never been demure, and I did not imagine shyness was what a man who had forged a rebellion was looking for.
By dark of night, I felt my heart swell with pride. Every new bride may have felt the same way, that I could not say. What I did know was that this marriage of political convenience, this union arranged to strengthen existing borders — this thing that never required love and that served as substitute for the original promise — would be an adventure. By dark of night, I reached out with fingers far steadier than they been had earlier in the evening and stroked my husband's hair. The word came to my thoughts more readily than before and though I ached to compare wedding nights with Lysa, with whom I had shared most everything, I realized I no longer needed my sister. I had Ned now, and Ned — best friend to the King, foster son to the husband of my sister, Lord of Winterfell — had me.
"You're awake." His voice startled me, forced my heart to my throat. Then I could but laugh, both at myself and at the absurdity of the situation. It was nothing women hadn't experienced for centuries upon centuries, I reminded myself. "Do you..." Ned paused, gathering his thoughts and his words. "Do you often wake in the night?"
The question brought to bear exactly how poorly we knew one another. By candlelight he looked less harsh, less intimidating. Younger. I had to remind myself he was a scant year older than I. For all that he'd done, more years had to have passed. Boys became men quickly, though not as rapidly as girls became women.
Pulling the blankets around myself, I shook my head. "No. Then again, I've never had a wedding night before."
Ned reached over, examining a lock of my hair. "I like your hair. Don't ever cut it, it becomes you." Sitting now, he watched me by candlelight. "Tell me about yourself, Cat. Tell me what you like, what you abhor, what you fancy, what you do with your time. Tell me all of it: your dreams, your wishes, your desires."
I had to smile. "That will take longer than this one night."
"I'm counting on that. What good fortune that we have the rest of our days to hear it all."
The second time I knew I could love Ned Stark was also on our wedding night. Far removed from all others, we sat up to near dawn learning about one another. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. The more he shared, the fonder I grew of him. Girlish fantasies about his brother gradually faded and by dawn's earliest hint of light, when we finally laid down and fell back to sleep together, I had decided this path we were on could be good, and true, and honest. I was no longer just another Tully girl.
I was Catelyn Stark, Lady of Winterfell.
Lady of Winterfell.